Colorado River water is going to the bank. Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt says a final plan allows Nevada, California
and Arizona to negotiate deals for storing surplus Colorado River
water. The three states will soon be able to store the water in
underground aquifers for later use or even sell it for cash, which
Babbitt believes will create conservation incentives. “This is one
of the biggest things to hit Nevada in 30 years,” Sen. Harry Reid,
D-Nev., told AP.
Vice
President Al Gore has a new proposal: He wants to tax mining
companies that extract minerals like gold and silver from public
lands and use the revenue to purchase parklands. While activists
say a tax is a long time coming, “we’d rather see these monies used
to address abandoned mine cleanup,” says Krista Dahlberg of the
Mineral Policy Center (HCN, 1/19/98). She says there are 500,000
abandoned mines in the country, and cleanup could cost as much as
$72 billion.
Prisoners will
stay in the Colorado wilds. After a five-year battle, a federal
judge says the state’s largest minimum-security prison, in Delta,
Colo., can legally remain in the middle of a state wildlife area
(HCN, 3/30/98). Environmentalists and sportsmen said the state
violated federal law guaranteeing sportsmen access to lands bought
with wildlife restoration dollars. “We view it as a victory,” says
Brian Bernett of the state Corrections
Department.
Watch your
language: “squaw” is defined as wife or woman in most English
dictionaries, but for many Native Americans the word translates to
prostitute (HCN, 9/18/95). Employees at Idaho’s Boise National
Forest say they may seek name changes for five geographic features
that contain the offensive term. In Idaho, 98 place names include
the word squaw. In Montana, the word is already taboo after a
four-year legal battle.
* Rebecca Clarren
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
