When Paonia, Colo., resident Richard Rudin challenged a local mine’s plans for expansion, the town was painfully divided, until the efforts of the North Fork Coal Working Group brought miners, environmentalists and agencies together for a solution.
National Land Trust Rally
More than 1,200 open-space advocates will join forces at a National Land Trust Rally, Oct. 19-22 in Portland, Ore., for workshops on everything from fund raising to drawing up a conservation easement. Contact the Land Trust Alliance at 1319 F Street NW, Suite 501, Washington, DC 20004 (202/638-4725), or see the Web at www.lta.org/rally.html. This…
One big bighorn
The biggest bighorn sheep skull you’ve ever seen is on display this summer at the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretive Center in Dubois, Wyo. It was found in the 1970s, among the remains of camels, cheetahs, musk ox, short-faced bears and bison that fell thousands of years ago into an 80-foot-deep limestone cave in Wyoming’s Bighorn…
Heard around the West
Are San Francisco residents rude to tourists? Of course! But just to make it official, the San Francisco Chronicle sent a reporter out with crutches. The hobbling reporter then stood in a crowded bus or train waiting to see if someone would give him a seat. The common response? “I got mine.” One of the…
Barberry bush beats bacteria
A compound from a barberry bush found on Colorado’s Western Slope is helping researchers fight antibiotic resistance. Some bacteria, particularly those that cause staph infections, can become resistant to antibiotics by pumping the drug out of cells before it begins to work. Colorado State University professor Frank Stermitz and Tufts University professor Kim Lewis discovered…
Carroll lives on imaginary planet
Dear HCN, In his essay, “Los Alamos is burning” (HCN, 5/22/00: Los Alamos is burning), Frank Carroll, formerly with the Forest Service and now with Potlatch Corp., presented us with two stretches of the imagination. First, he managed to avoid placing any blame for the Los Alamos fire on the Forest Service and other land-management…
Help search for snakes
Hikers, bikers and river rafters should be ready to capture – with cameras, that is – any scaly-skinned critters sunning themselves on Grand Canyon rocks. Nikolle Brown, also known as “the Snake Lady,” needs help documenting reptile sightings for her Snakes of the Grand Canyon Identification and Distribution project. Brown, a seasoned wildlife biologist for…
Don’t ignore role of climate change
Dear HCN, I’ve just read Ed Marston’s column about the Los Alamos fire (HCN, 5/22/00: Yelling fire in a crowded West). I was disappointed to see no discussion of the impact of climate change on fire regimes and the occurrence of catastrophic crown fires in recent decades, despite the severe drought under which the New…
Saving some of Utah
In early June, a coalition of environmental groups completed a three-year, $2.5 million fund-raising effort to protect a historic ranch tucked deep in northern Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. The privately owned ranch provides habitat for elk, mule deer, moose and sandhill cranes, and several historic trails traverse the ranch’s 7,300 acres. But the property is only…
Delta water treaty needs amending
Dear HCN, I read with interest Michelle Nijhuis’ fine piece on the Colorado Delta. As HCN so aptly puts it, the issue is really whether or not environmentalists can find the means to change the Law of the River. While I support and applaud the legal efforts of the Delta coalition (Southwest Center for Biological…
The bees’ needs
Golf courses are becoming a great place to learn about the birds and the bees. A Portland, Ore.-based group says that with a little encouragement, native pollinators such as bees and beetles will easily inhabit golf courses. Only a small percentage of any golf course is used by golfers, and the rest has great potential…
Expect the big burn
Dear HCN, After the forest fires in New Mexico and Colorado, I had to write. This could be nature getting back at the hobby ranchers and interlopers. On the Front Range in Colorado and New Mexico, you don’t have corporate tree farms, so most of the interface lands from the Plains to the U.S. Forest…
Vulgar yet valiant
For most of us, a quick glimpse of a plane as it drones overhead on its way to a wildfire is all we’ll ever see of smokejumpers or the work they do, but Murry A. Taylor’s Jumping Fire: A Smokejumper’s Memoir of Fighting Wildfire in the West, offers insight into their hectic lives. Taylor, who…
Don’t blame cows
Dear HCN, The recent issue on wildfires and exotic weeds continues a disappointing trend in your paper, of peddling panaceas rather than creating dialogue. In the opening page, the “usual suspects’ are rounded up – grazing, farming, roads, mines – and from there it reads like a tabloid account of the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder. One…
The Wayward West
The Clinton administration has weighed in on the politically charged dam-breaching debate in the Northwest – and some say it’s bad news for endangered salmon (HCN, 12/20/99: Unleashing the Snake). On July 19, George Frampton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, announced Clinton will delay demolishing the four Snake River dams for five to…
Killing Coyote
The human hordes are still at it, roaming the last of the Big Open with their guns and traps and poisons, trying to wipe out yet another of their fellow creatures. This time, the target is the resilient trickster himself, coyote. Doug Hawes-Davis frames his latest documentary film, Killing Coyote, with the Calcutta, a coyote-killing…
Government writes wolf success story
NATION The federal government has declared its wolf recovery program a success. With wolf numbers at nearly 3,500 today – up from practically zero in the 1950s – the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed on July 11 to downlist the gray wolf from “endangered” to “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in most of…
Raging river, quiet mind
Field Notes from the Grand Canyon: Raging River, Quiet Mind, by Teresa Jordan, Johnson Books, 1880 S. 57th Court, Boulder, CO 80301, 2000. Paperback: $14. “There is a Zen saying that when the student is ready, the teacher is there,” writes Teresa Jordan, who had carried her watercolors on a dozen different trips, never to…
Buddhist temple hits a snag
CALIFORNIA While a Buddhist temple may be a place of tranquility, plans for a new retreat center in a canyon have environmentalists fuming and suing. The controversy began after San Bernardino County unanimously approved a 1998 proposal by Ling Yen Temple Inc. to build a 10-building retreat and a 600-car parking lot. Now, a Pasadena-based…
Sacred Buffalo Conference
Seven Pueblo tribes will host the third annual Sacred Buffalo Conference, Aug. 13-15 in Santa Fe, N.M. The theme is “Restoring Healthy Native Nations,” and participants will discuss topics ranging from buffalo herd management to diabetes in Indian people. Contact the InterTribal Bison Cooperative at 1560 Concourse Drive, Rapid City, SD 57703 (605/394-9730), www.intertribalbison.org. This…
Water district has identity crisis
NEW MEXICO The largest irrigation district on the Rio Grande has received some bone-shaking news: The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, formerly thought to be an arm of the state, is a federal agency. In 1951, the Bureau of Reclamation bailed out the nearly bankrupt district, spending millions to renovate dams and irrigation ditches. At…
Riparian Ecology and Management in Multi-Land Use Watersheds
A conference on Riparian Ecology and Management in Multi-Land Use Watersheds Aug. 28-31 in Portland, Ore., includes international speakers who will discuss issues from salmon recovery to the effects of earthquakes on riverside habitat. Contact the American Water Resources Association at 4 West Federal St., P.O. Box 1626, Middleburg, VA 20118-1626 (540/687-8390), www.awra.org. This article…
Neighbors oppose land trade
COLORADO A 640-acre piece of high-elevation forest and meadowland is the topic of a heated debate in central Colorado. The future of the Little Cochetopa Creek School Section near Salida is now in the hands of the State Land Board, and Chaffee County residents worry the board will choose private development over public domain. A…
National Mountain Conference
Hiking and mountaineering clubs will sponsor a National Mountain Conference in Golden, Colo., Sept. 14-16. Land managers and outdoor recreation specialists will discuss human impacts on mountain ecosystems, and a field trip to ski area expansions at Vail Pass and Breckenridge is also available. Call conference coordinator at 603/466-2721, ext. 184, send e-mail to melhov@landmarknet.net,…
Loggers win one
WASHINGTON A county jury says the state of Washington must pay a logging company almost $10,000 an acre if it wants to protect spotted owls on private land. SDS Co. was forced to halt logging on 232 acres of its land in 1992 after state biologists found evidence of an owl nest in the area.…
Volunteer Stewards
The state of Colorado is looking for “volunteer stewards” to be its eyes and ears in the field. The state’s Natural Areas Program asks stewards to visit areas such as the alpine meadows surrounding Gothic, Colo., and the desert Escalante Canyon, and report back on what they find. You’ll need a good pair of hiking…
Communities Directory: A Guide to Intentional Communities and Cooperative Living
A new directory features maps, cross-referenced charts and an index of 700 religious, environmentally conscious, agricultural and artistic communities. For information about Communities Directory: A Guide to Intentional Communities and Cooperative Living, which sells for $30, call 800/462-8240 or go to http://store.ic.org/. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline…
Musicians United to Sustain the Environment
Musicians United to Sustain the Environment will give away an environmentally oriented CD in drawings four times a year. To register, visit www.musemusic.org. Michigan-based MUSE is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization raising funds through music for grassroots efforts to protect wilderness and wildlife. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline…
In New Mexico, a surprising proposal rises from the flames
For 11 years, Santa Fe’s Forest Guardians have been unflinching in their opposition to logging on the Southwest’s national forests. But this June, they blinked. Following the Cerro Grande fire that swept through Los Alamos, Forest Guardians released its first-ever proposal for cutting trees. The proposal calls for thinning and prescribed burning in Santa Fe’s…
Society for Human Ecology
Scientists, educators and urban planners are invited to attend a conference sponsored by the Society for Human Ecology, Oct. 18-22 in Jackson, Wyo. The group looks at how humans interact with their environment – whether the “environment” is a forest or a city. Participants will discuss environmental policy and decision-making as well as urban ecosystems.…
Colorado blazes fuel forest restoration efforts
Front Range communities work to protect their water supply from post-fire soil erosion
Out of the darkness
A Western Colorado community meets a coal boom halfway
Mining out the middleman
In Montana, locals and industry bypass agencies and forge a new road
Rural Green: A new shade of activism
Ed Marston interviews Steve Hinchman, former HCN staffer and director of the Western Slope Environmental Resource Council, about the different kind of environmental activism and consensus-building needed in rural Western communities.
Dear Friends
Life in a petri dish July in Paonia is time for cherries, apricots and early morning irrigation. It’s time to crank up the swamp coolers and charge down Grand Avenue to jump into what’s left of the North Fork of the Gunnison River. But most of all, it’s the season for visiting far-flung friends and…
A party for the people
Late on the afternoon of July 14, about three dozen people gathered at a Salt Lake City park to celebrate the 30th anniversary of an unusual family reunion. Dubbed the Bastille Family Reunion, this party got its start after the People’s Park incident in Berkeley, Calif., in 1969, when cities around the country banned large…
Kicking and screaming in Nevada
The July 4 Shovel Brigade rally was a yawner, but protesters may still get what they want
The snail that stands like a dam
Grand Canyon restoration hinges on the recovery of a tiny, talented mollusk
Up in smoke: Hanford fire releases plutonium
Activists worried about airborne ash