Vast tracts of inholdings in the Mojave National
Preserve in California are for sale – and its National Park Service
caretakers can only watch the new neighbors move in (HCN, 4/14/97).
Newcomers could mean 100 houses and a golf course. Just across the
state line in Nevada, a county wants to build a major airport.
Because the legislation that created the preserve four years ago
ruled out restricting private-land owners within the park, the
2,200 people who own 12 percent of the park can sell to anyone they
please.
There were 11. Now there are seven
Mexican wolves left in the wilds of Arizona and New Mexico, and
some say it’s a setback to the recovery program (HCN, 2/16/98). But
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which released the wolves four
months ago, says not to worry. “We predicted that half or slightly
more of the wolves would be lost or recaptured over the first
year,” wolf program leader David Parsons told the Arizona Daily
Star.
Because the Canada lynx has disappeared
from most of its former range in the United States, the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service has finally proposed listing the cat as
“threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (HCN, 2/2/98). The
decision comes after years of political wrangling and a court
order. But some environmentalists still say the lynx needs more
protection, because habitat destruction and trapping have almost
wiped out the animal in the lower 48. The healthiest lynx
population is found in Montana, where trapping lynx is still
legal.
Five months after the town of Detroit,
Ore., asked the Willamette National Forest to keep chainsaws away
from the upper reaches of its watershed, the agency announced it
will log the 379-acre “High and Dry” timber sale (HCN, 4/27/98).
The Forest Service says that because it won’t build any new roads
or cut any old-growth, and will leave 70 percent of the forest
canopy intact, locals have nothing to fear. Detroit’s city council
hasn’t yet decided if it will appeal.
In 1995,
Louisiana-Pacific Corp. promised no more shenanigans. It fired
scandal-plagued CEO Harry Merlo and agreed to pony up $275 million
to reimburse thousands of homeowners who bought the company’s
defective waferboard siding – once advertised as “a triumph in wood
technology” (HCN, 12/9/96). But the Wall Street Journal reports L-P
is still shirking its duties. In May, claims totaled $365 million,
with approximately 800 new claims pouring in weekly. So far, 48,000
consumers haven’t seen a dime.
* Dustin
Solberg
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
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