Is the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency going to clean up beleaguered Lake Tahoe and its surroundings – or simply drive a wedge between the elite and the working class in the community?
Rancher shoots for test case
Brucellosis-infected elk are a major threat to Wyoming’s economy, says Meeteetse-area rancher Martin Thomas. Serious enough, he will argue in court, to warrant the assault-rifle attack that left nine elk dead and lots of wildlife-management questions unanswered (HCN, 3/3/97). On March 31, Thomas pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally gunned down elk near…
‘I felt defensive’
Dear HCN, The sidebar editorial by Louise Liston, “A proud and defiant native,” (HCN, 4/14/97) regarding the recent creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, was disturbing. It made me uncomfortable. It made me stop and think. Liston characterized an environmentalist’s love of the land as a “weekend love affair,” quite different from her deep…
Utah Paiutes put the brakes on chaining
When over 250,000 acres of central Utah’s public lands burned in last summer’s wildfires, the Bureau of Land Management began its routine land-clearing procedure: chaining. But soon after the BLM tractors started up this spring, dragging a heavy chain between two vehicles to uproot dead trees and create a new seed bed of churned-up earth,…
Protect it, don’t pave it
Dear HCN: Your cover story on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (HCN, 4/14/97) stated that the challenge facing the Bureau of Land Management in planning for the monument is “to protect the land and make it accessible.” Wrong. The comment incorrectly assumes the BLM is confronted with the same bedeviling mandate adopted by some national…
The Hopis have a point
Dear HCN, After 10 years of monitoring the Diné-Hopi land dispute (HCN, 3/31/97), I’ve never really faulted the Diné (Navajo) for their tactics, since I would probably do the same things if I were faced with losing my home (though I cringe at the rhetorical excess: Buying someone a $70,000 home in Flagstaff is not…
Coffee is bad for birds
You pour yourself a cup of coffee and listen for the chirp and twitter of birds outside. But as you sip, you notice the quiet: What’s happened to the songbirds? The answer could be right in your cup. Songbird populations are dropping as foreign coffee plantations “modernize” to keep up with America’s thirst for the…
Greens should not stick to their guns
Dear HCN, Your piece on the mountain goats in Olympic National Park perpetuates the myth that environmental groups should stick by Park Service propaganda (HCN, 3/3/97). Park officials continue to declare the goats were brought to the Olympic Peninsula by settlers in the 1920s. They were embarrassed, however, when the Fund for Animals unearthed an…
Guess who’s dining together
Dear HCN, Thank goodness for Ted Williams – -Hunters Close Ranks, and Minds’ – he’s a national treasure (HCN, 3/3/97). I would like to point out to your readers that Orion-The Hunters Institute has recently initiated a project called “Winsor Dinners,” named after a Colorado hunter who first held a potluck at his home for…
Shutdown attempts go up in smoke
-It’s like standing on the dock and watching the Titanic set out to sea,” says Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a Kentucky-based organization that monitors chemical weapons activity around the U.S. “Nobody wants to listen to us.” Williams is talking about the chemical weapons incineration plant in remote Tooele, Utah, (HCN, 9/16/96)…
Judge is bullish on trout protection
Pushed by a federal judge, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it has started the process of listing the bull trout under the Endangered Species Act. The announcement was sad news for the governors of Idaho and Montana, who both have crafted state recovery plans for the cold-water-loving species, partly in an attempt to…
Arizona Grazing Clearinghouse
How can you tell if public land is healthy? The Arizona Grazing Clearinghouse, which includes the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, Prescott National Forest Friends, the Society for Conservation Biologists, and others concerned about grazing practices, will host a workshop exploring this question at Northern Arizona State University in Flagstaff, Ariz., June 14-15. Supervisors of…
Timber mill dreams of museum
It’s a public-relations dream: Save an outdated, inefficient timber mill from the scrap heap by making it a working museum that cuts logs for show. But there’s a catch: Hull-Oakes Lumber Co., owner of the 90-year-old steam-powered mill near Monroe, Ore., wants the federal government to guarantee two-thirds of its timber supply – 12 million…
Wild Idaho!
Help celebrate 25 years of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area at the annual Wild Idaho! conference May 16-18, at Redfish Lake Lodge near Stanley. The weekend features lively auctions, field trips, music and a slide show on the Boulder-White Clouds mountains; speakers include Rep. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Bill LeVere, the feisty supervisor of the Sawtooth…
No takers for wilderness trip
Last month, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt tried a consensus approach to resolving the state’s rancorous wilderness debate: He suggested a camping trip, but no one wanted to come. Leavitt invited environmental leaders, county commissioners, federal land managers, ranchers and coal miners to eastern Utah. They would visit proposed wilderness areas on Bureau of Land Management…
Cry Wolf
With The Great American Wolf, wildlife biologist Bruce Hampton has written a book almost as compelling as the fiercely intelligent predator itself. Hampton, who lives in Lander, Wyo., first tells us how white hunters in the West sought to wipe out wolves, which were viewed as competitors in the taking of “helpless’ buffalo, deer and…
Intimidation is on the rise
-Our goal is to destroy, to eradicate the environmental movement,” said Ron Arnold, of Seattle, Wash., one of the leaders of the wise-use movement, in 1991. “We’re mad as hell.” It’s one thing to talk about anger and destruction; another to act out those feelings. Since 1989, there have been over 100 incidents of harassment…
Beauty prized above all
It may come as a surprise to developers, but the Grand Canyon region’s lower-income residents favor protecting the environment over promoting economic growth. So says a recent survey, Grand Canyon Reflections: A Report on the Environmental Values, Attitudes and Beliefs of the Residents of the Grand Canyon Region, by Northern Arizona University’s social research laboratory.…
Following the salmon
The Northwest salmon crisis has spawned a $150-a-year journal devoted, says its editor, to “the most significant environmental restoration effort ever undertaken in the United States.” Bill Crampton, a fourth-generation Oregonian and former newspaper editor, started the Northwest Salmon Recovery Report in February to provide an independent voice on regional salmon issues. Crampton, who publishes…
Taking range reform by the horns
Almost a year after last summer’s devastating droughts parched the Southwest, Navajo ranchers are warming up to the idea of range reform. A joint Bureau of Indian Affairs-Navajo Nation plan may revoke some 900 grazing permits on Navajo land. This step is the most recent in a long-standing effort to reduce overgrazing on much of…
It’s back
For the fourth time, the U.S. Air Force has released its draft environmental impact statement for a new electronic combat and bombing range in the Owyhee Canyonlands of southern Idaho, eastern Oregon and northern Nevada. The Air Force currently makes 7,500 sonic and subsonic annual flights over the Owyhee Canyonlands. The Air Force says the…
Wolves have friend in Washington
Wolves may yet howl in Washington state’s Olympic National Park now that Norm Dicks, the Olympic Peninsula’s influential congressman, supports the cause. But the effort hinges on a feasibility study that has yet to be funded. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the lead federal agency on wolf recovery, is already involved in recovery efforts…
Getting off the road to ruin
Can you imagine a world without traffic jams, potholes or auto accidents? Activists can at the Arcata, Calif.-based Alliance for a Paving Moratorium. Since 1990, the group has been urging people to get out of their air-polluting vehicles and find their feet again. The alliance’s 40-page, newsprint quarterly, Auto-Free Times, keeps the public up to…
Marathon Oil sues to get into roadless area
In a case that could set a precedent for how citizen-proposed wilderness in Colorado is managed, an oil company is suing the Bureau of Land Management for pulling certain parcels from a routine oil and gas lease sale. The Texas-based Marathon Oil company says the lands do not lie in official wilderness study areas and…
Utah’s culture war continues
Dear HCN, Paul Larmer’s story on the president’s new monument (HCN, 4/14/97) is a pretty unfortunate piece of work, reprinting the same tired and unsupported information that has been circulating around the Intermountain West for the past few months. Most of this folklore is, of course, lies created by the extractive industries and swallowed by…
County caught in cottonwood quagmire
A simple idea: Eliminate the trees, stabilize the levees, save a town. But things are seldom what they seem. Ask officials of Benewah County, Idaho. In February, they cut down hundreds of cottonwoods to stabilize levees on the St. Joe River in the town of St. Maries. They wanted to prevent a repeat of last…
The Craig bill: Calm down, everybody
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ah, for the glory years of the 104th. Those were the days, when Western Republicans filled the congressional hoppers with their dreams for their region’s public lands – plans to help one species or another chop more trees, chomp more grass, dig more mines and maybe even present some of the land…
Heard around the West
From the EPA joke network comes a sampling of signs seen across the United States, the first at a Santa Fe gas station: “We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container.” On the window of a New Mexico dry cleaner: “38 years on the same spot.” And in the window of an Oregon…
Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – Joe Thiemann stormed out of a meeting of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) with murder in his eyes. The powerful agency had finally pushed him too far. The quick-tempered 45-year-old entrepreneur had been running cruises aboard the Tahoe Queen, a 500-passenger Mississippi-style riverboat, since he was 20. The paddle…
Oregon gets shot at saving salmon
In a move that speaks loudly of the Clinton administration’s approach to resolving endangered species conflicts, the National Marine Fisheries Service will give federal protection to one population of wild coastal salmon but not another. Under a court-imposed deadline, the agency decided April 25 to list the southern population of coho – which spawn in…
The mission is simple: restore Lake Tahoe
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency was created in 1969 by a compact between California and Nevada that was ratified by Congress. The TRPA governing board is made up of 15 members: seven from California, seven from Nevada, and one non-voting presidential appointee. Six members…
Coal-tax dispute may return to high court
Montana is trying to force its coal-tax dispute with the Crow tribe – a case that has been kicking around the federal courts for 19 years – to yet another hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. The tribe won the first round in 1988, when the Supreme Court declared in a $46.8 million judgment that…
Here come Clinton and Gore
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore are coming to Lake Tahoe in late July for a summit on the lake’s environment and development. It will be the first time that a president has ever visited the area for policy or pleasure while…
Potatoes raise a stink in Idaho
Something’s rotten in Ririe, Idaho, a town of less than 1,000 close to Idaho Falls. At least, the residents who live near the Idaho Pacific potato processing plant think so. “You’ve got to hold your breath for at least a half a mile driving out on the road (by the plant),” says LuWayne Gallup. “It…
Three voices on Lake Tahoe
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “The battle between the environment and business was really joined at Lake Tahoe in the 1970s. We’ve only recently learned to cooperate.” – Steve Teshara, Lake Tahoe Gaming Alliance “We’ve transcended partisanship. We work closely with the casinos and ski resorts now.” – Rochelle…
Dear friends
Spring visitors Subscriber Ed Moreno took the scenic route from Denver, where he was visiting his parents, to Santa Fe, where he is an assistant commissioner in the New Mexico State Land Office. His boss is Ray Powell – one of the West’s most innovative public land commissioners. Freelance writer Peter Shelton, a resident of…
Dick Randall, a fighter for the West
Staff was sorry to hear of the death of Dick Randall in Rock Springs, Wyo., at the age of 72. A fervent conservationist, Randall in his youth worked as an aerial coyote-gunner for the federal Animal Damage Control agency. Suffering from the effects of several air crashes, and more important, a change of heart about…
The West braces for the big melt
The West is shaking off one of the wettest winters ever, and the snow keeps falling. Instead of April showers, a spring blizzard hit Wyoming early in the month, killing thousands of cattle and sheep trapped in fence-line snowdrifts. Record snowpacks are piled up in the high country, aided by late April storms: Parts of…