Dear HCN,
Judging from publisher Ed
Marston’s April 10 article, “Beyond the Revolution,” High
Country News has abandoned all pretext of balanced
treatment of environmental news. For Mr. Marston to assume that the
four Snake River dams will be breached, and for him to completely
ignore the vitally important issue of Western private land
intermixed with the 50 percent federal ownership (plus state and
local government ownership), is an abandonment of balance and
facts. When Mr. Marston says, “An immense landscape is going from
one set of uses to another set of uses …,” he should have said
“from use to non-use.”
It’s also appalling to
read that the Wyoming not-in-my-backyard enviros who threatened to
tie up the permit process for incinerating nuclear waste in Idaho
were able to “settle,” because the government couldn’t afford the
tie-up, but also collected $150,000 for their legal fees from our
government taxes. Did the enviros have reasonable suggestions for
how and where to dispose of the waste? Private landowners are at a
huge disadvantage when their own government pays enviros’ attorney
fees in settlements of lawsuits that affect private as well as
public land.
It’s not just the struggle for the
public lands that is ending. It’s the takeover of private lands,
too, that’s also almost
accomplished.
Maxine
Keesling
Woodinville,
Washington
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline It’s a rotten revolution.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
