The series “The Hidden West” is High Country News’ look at communities that are on the edge and often uncertain of their future.
Court puts gas in private hands
A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in June has answered a long-standing question over who owns vast deposits of methane gas found in coal beds in several states across the West. In a case brought by the Southern Ute Indian Tribe of southwest Colorado, the court sided 7-1 with Amoco Production Co. The ruling…
Mining on the run
Since Montana voters passed an initiative last November blocking certain kinds of mining, the industry has taken its hits. In the wake of a ban on new and expanded open-pit cyanide heap-leach mining, both the Montana Mining Association and the company behind the controversial McDonald gold mine have laid off employees. The mining association is…
Governor floats a wilderness bill
In May, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt announced a 1 million-acre wilderness proposal for the West Desert, the latest step in what he calls an “incremental approach” for BLM lands. But while his proposal is supported by the Department of the Interior, it’s drawing criticism from county politicians, and it’s only a small part of the…
A peculiar fish gets a second chance
The fluvial Arctic grayling hasn’t had an easy time of it during the last 10,000 years. Left stranded in the rivers of the Northern Rockies after the last glaciers receded, it remains the only native grayling population in the lower 48 states. But the grayling almost disappeared in Montana over the last 100 years. It’s…
Give me a home where the engines roar
A recent editorial in the weekly Bitterroot Star of Stevensville, Mont., likened a racetrack proposed for the Bitterroot Valley to “a smelly dog, running from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of a home.” Promoters first went to the Ravalli County Commission, asking to build a racetrack at the county fairgrounds in Hamilton, Mont. The commissioners…
Senator jumps the gun for the military
Lawmakers and environmentalists are up in arms over the future of military training grounds in the West. The excitement began this May when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., unveiled a proposal to allow the military use of 3 million acres of public land in Arizona and New Mexico. The public land includes the McGregor Range and…
Garden of Dreams vs. High Desert Reality
It’s year 24 for the Western Water Workshop at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., July 28-30. This year’s gathering, Garden of Dreams vs. High Desert Reality: Can We Save Everything, Keep Our Lawns Green and Have Enough Water for Everyone? features conference co-founder L. Richard Bratton as keynote speaker. Contact Robin Helken at the…
Free market solutions to environmental problems
The Political Economy Research Center offers fellowships to graduate and law students interested in free market solutions to environmental problems. Three-month fellowships offer a monthly stipend of $1,200; applications are due July 15. Contact Clay J. Landry, PERC, 502 S. 19th Ave., Ste. 211, Bozeman, MT 59718 (406/587-9591); www.perc.org/students.htm. This article appeared in the print…
Trail-crew volunteers
The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative needs trail-crew volunteers willing to work weekends on Mount Harvard and Mount Bierstadt, two of Colorado’s most visited over-14,000-foot peaks. Contact Jennifer Tucker, Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, 710 10th St., Suite 220, Golden, CO 80401 (303/278-7525 ext. 115). This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Trail-crew…
No holes in the story
Dear HCN, I am the author of the Sierra magazine article cited as being “guilty” of “misinformation about wildlife” (HCN, 5/10/99). The story concerned the research Charlie Russell and Maureen Enns are doing with grizzly bears in Kamchatka. HCN quotes Chuck Bartlebaugh of the Center for Wildlife Information as saying that “the story is full…
Community leaders
Community leaders can soon learn nuts-and-bolts skills about how to organize around issues such as civil rights, the environment and labor. The Western States Center’s annual training program attracted over 500 people last year; the deadline for registering for this summer’s conference in Portland, Ore., July 29-Aug. 1, is July 9. For details, contact Alanna…
Ranchettes got a Twinkie-defense
Dear HCN, If Susan Ewing’s soul is at rest on her 20-acre ranchette outside of Bozeman, as she claims, why did she feel the need to stage such an elaborate Twinkie-defense of living there (-My Beautiful Ranchette,” HCN, 5/10/99)? Ewing’s justification is her craving for space, her appreciation for wildlife, and her desire to “settle…
Renewable energy fair
The timber town of John Day, Ore., hosts a renewable energy fair, July 24-25, featuring a Volkswagen car that runs on electricity, and workshops on energy conservation. For details, contact Jennifer Barker, SolWest, P.O. Box 485, Canyon City, OR 97820 (541/542-2525); e-mail: solwest@eoni.com or check out www.eoni.com/~solwest. This article appeared in the print edition of…
Look who’s calling who weird
Dear HCN, There is nothing “weird” about Death Valley (HCN, 5/24/99). What is weird is High Country News’ attitude about any expanse of land that does not have a bunch of trees on it. Maybe what we need is a publication called Low Country News, which will have a positive attitude regarding the deserts and…
Mountaineers’ support was anything but secret
Dear HCN, Andy Wiessner needs no defense from me or any other conservationist to support his environmental credentials over many years. However, I do want to correct the erroneous and libelous comments in Ben Twight’s letter (HCN, 5/24/99) about the Mountaineers and my role in the Forest Service-Plum Creek land exchange. I have been a…
Californicating carpetbaggers
Dear HCN, Dan Flores (-In Montana: The view from the ranchette,” HCN, 5/10/99) is technically correct when he writes that A.B. Guthrie Jr. was a Midwesterner. It is misleading, however, to accuse the author of The Big Sky of being just another hypocritical carpetbagger Californicating Montana while criticizing others for doing so. In 1901, his…
The Wayward West
Northern spotted owls are still disappearing. The Northwest Forest Plan of 1991 was intended to lower the rate of the bird’s decline to 1 percent a year, by halting old-growth logging in spotted owl habitat (HCN, 11/23/98). But The Wall Street Journal reports owl populations are falling at four times that rate. “The plan is…
About those park ranger hats
Dear HCN, I can definitely do without dumb poorly drawn cartoons by Jim Stiles (HCN, 5/24/99). First, I’m sure the Park Service rangers do not take it upon themselves to raise fees, and they do need more money because there are more people using our facilities. Second, they may “pack” guns because, let’s face it,…
‘Over the River’ not yet through the woods
Controversy and art often go hand in hand, and the proposed “Over The River” project in central Colorado is no exception. In this case, it’s the medium rather than the messagethat has people up in arms. The artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who use only single names, are known for large-scale temporary exhibits spanning natural or…
The new faces of the West
Note: this front-page essay introduces this issue’s feature stories. Now that small towns are disappearing from America, we visit Disney theme parks designed to remind us of them. Or we crowd into the first small town we can find and set about changing it into the suburb we came from. This is the last of…
Out of the fields: South Idaho’s Hispanics create acommunity
Note: a sidebar article, “Inspired by Cesar Chavez,” accompanies this feature story. “We did not cross the border, the border crossed us.” –Erasmo Gamboa CALDWELL, Idaho – The front room of Manuel Garcia’s tiny apartment at the Farmway Village labor camp resembles a flea-market booth. Stacked from floor to ceiling are toys, dolls, blankets, model…
Inspired by Cesar Chavez
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Maria Gonzales Mabbutt nurses her four-month-old daughter Marisa in her Canyon County home while she tells her story. She is 43 and grew up as many Hispanics in her generation did: migrating. From the Rio Grande Valley town of Elsa, Texas, Mabbutt…
Who loses when a city neighborhood goes upscale?
PORTLAND, Ore. – In Northeast Portland, you can get culture shock just by crossing the street. Near the corner of Alberta Street and 28th Avenue, a no-frills tacqueria called La Sirenita sells fish tacos to a long line of customers for little more than a dollar apiece. On the other side of Alberta, Bernie’s Southern…
A political outsider wages a clever campaign
Brian Schweitzer may be a farmer, but he is no country bumpkin. When the media-savvy 43-year-old Montanan announced his candidacy for the United States Senate, he did so from a podium at the Black Star Brewery. With him were several hundred pounds of premium Montana barley. He touted the popular Whitefish brew as a symbol…
Low-paid service workers get squeezed in a booming Montana resort town
WHITEFISH, Mont. – After working his $7-an-hour job at the Grouse Mountain Lodge, Jerry Wheeler doesn’t hang out in this picturesque town in western Montana. He drives 20 miles south to a modest home on the outskirts of Kalispell, the mercantile center of the Flathead Valley. Wheeler says he is one of the few Grouse…
Dear Friends
Count those cows Writer Perri Knize of Missoula was intrigued by a pair of numbers in HCN’s April 27, 1998, issue. According to the article, “livestock” across the West had declined over the last 100 years from 20 million to 2 million. Perri, working on an article on grazing for the July 1999 Atlantic, wanted…
Seeking justice for all on the Colorado Plateau
Charles Wilkinson’s “Fire on the Plateau …” is a tribute to the land and people of the Colorado Plateau, especially the tribes
Heard around the West
How do you describe the odor of 1,800 bison skulls rotting in the sun? Putrid, say a handful of neighbors some nine miles from Red Lodge, Mont. “It makes us gag.” Entrepreneurs Eric Saltzman and Corynne Freeman trucked in the festering heads after land they leased elsewhere was sold; now they’re faced with a nuisance…
Wilderness developer Tom Chapman is back
VAIL, Colo. – One of Colorado’s best-known real estate speculators is back, but some say the deals he’s offering ought to be turned down. Tom Chapman has a history of buying private land in wilderness areas, threatening to build mansions, and then goading the U.S. Forest Service into buying him out or trading him valuable…
Will an experimental plan be snuffed out?
As a relentless summer sun bakes the ponderosa pine forests surrounding Flagstaff, Ariz., an experimental logging project meant to restore forest health and reduce the risk of wildfire around the city has hit a snag. On June 18, an administrative appeal filed with the Forest Service by a coalition of seven environmental groups halted a…