President Bill Clinton designated another
national monument (HCN, 4/10/00: Beyond the Revolution).
Now 355,000 acres are preserved in California’s Sequoia National
Forest, and that means existing logging rights will be phased out
over the next three and a half years. While environmentalists
celebrated the latest link in Clinton’s land-legacy chain, locals
were upset. “We who live in these rural areas and are most affected
by the decisions are neither consulted in a meaningful way nor
heard,” columnist Nancy Thornburg wrote in the San
Francisco Chronicle.
Snowmobiles are no longer welcome in most
national parks, says the Department of the Interior (HCN, 3/13/00:
EPA sets sights on snowmobiles). “The snowmobile industry has had
many years to clean up their act, and they haven’t,” Donald Barry,
assistant secretary of Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks,
told The New York Times. Snowmobilers are fuming and plan to fight
for their right to ride.
Yellowstone National
Park can cash in on microbes that thrive in its hotsprings, says a
federal judge (HCN, 3/30/98: Groups sue over microbes). A lawsuit
brought by three environmental groups failed to halt a deal
allowing “bioprospecting” by Diversa Corp. of
San Diego. The project, however, must undergo an environmental
impact statement. Federal judge Royce Lamberth said the deal could
“provide a valuable source of funding to support the Park Service’s
ongoing wildlife preservation.”
No
nuclear waste will be heading to Nevada – at least for
now (HCN, 2/01/99: Where will the waste wind up?). President Bill
Clinton vetoed a bill that would have shipped the waste to an
unfinished repository at Yucca Mountain. The bill would have also
stopped the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing radiation
standards for storing the waste until Clinton was out of office.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Congress’ timetable for Yucca
Mountain was “unachievable.” Congress hopes to overturn the
veto.
A federal judge called the Arizona-based
Center for Biodiversity “valiant and persistent” in its 11-year
battle with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over designation of
critical habitat for the Mexican spotted owl.
U.S. Magistrate Lorenzo F. Garcia gave the federal agency until
Jan. 15, 2001, to make a
decision.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
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