Eureka, Utah, unearths a toxic legacy just as its only hope for rescue, the federal Superfund cleanup program, blows away. Also in this issue: Thousands of park and forest jobs could go to private contractors.
The push is on to privatize federal jobs
Thousands of park and forest jobs could go to private contractors
Like Butte, a lonely dog hangs on
BUTTE, Mont. – On the fringe of this faded mining town, at the core of one of the nation’s largest Superfund sites, lives an amazing paradox. Its genus is Canus, but its species would have to be called extraordinarius. I doubt there’s ever been another dog like this on the planet. The mysterious, mostly wild…
Darwinism on the Klamath River
Dear HCN, I have seen several articles in your paper regarding problems with water on the Klamath River (HCN, 10/28/02: The mesasge of 30,000 dead salmon). All of the articles fail to mention just how much water is running into the lake behind the dam. The dam was built to store excess water for human…
Leave your political passions at home
Dear HCN, I’m pleased to enclose my first-year renewal card; however, I do so with a note of caution, prompted by the current issue in front of me. Be careful. One might get the impression, from headlines like “Democrats kick back” (HCN, 10/14/02: The politics of growth) to some of the election coverage inside, that…
Administration, industry stamp out clean airregs
California has long been a trendsetter. Since 1967, the smog-ridden state has set clean air standards that are stricter than federal laws require. But now, the auto industry, backed by the Bush administration, is trying to halt the California Air Resources Board’s progressive auto-emissions regulations. In 1990, the state required that 10 percent of cars…
Gas debate needs common sense
Dear HCN, The “Backlash” article (HCN, 9/2/02: Backlash) was one of the best I have read yet concerning CBM development in the West. I have served as commissioner on the Colorado oil and Gas Conservation Commission, La Plata County Oil & Gas technical advisor and consulting environmental geologist to the gas industry and property owners…
Rowell devolved to kitsch
Dear HCN, The wording of your accolade to the late Galen Rowell (HCN, 9/2/02: Farewell to a great mountain photographer) was misleading. In recent years, his “transcendental approach to capturing the natural world” meant descending from fine art downward, past popular art into the dubious world of kitsch. His Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop, Calif.,…
Election Bounce
Ranchers will continue to be forced to pay $1 per cow to corporate beef marketers. In early November, U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings, Mont., ruled against Montana ranchers Steve and Jeanne Charter and upheld the constitutionality of the “beef checkoff” rule (HCN, 9/30/02: Independent ranchers fight corporate control). It’s another victory for the…
Bay is an environmental treasure
Dear HCN, Susan Zakin’s article, “Delta Blues” (HCN, 9/30/02: Delta blues), is perhaps the best and clearest explanation of the complex issues involved in California’s attempt to be all things to all people when it comes to demands for water. She mentions that the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta region is “virtually invisible to most people…
Fees cut people out of public lands
Dear HCN, I have studied the Fee Demo program thoroughly as well as kept myself well-informed since its inception (HCN, 9/10/01: Congress may agree on fees). I am president of Seniors Outdoors!, a very active club of 430 members; we use the trails and parks for recreation at least three times a week year round…
Cowboys fight oil and gas drillers
Fed up with energy companies, frustrated by the Bureau of Land Management and worried about their land, several northwestern New Mexico ranchers locked their gates on Nov. 14, blocking private roads to natural gas wells. “We finally decided we’re tired of fooling with them,” says Tweeti Blancett. She and her husband closed a road leading…
Klamath water worth more in river
Klamath water worth more in river
Fish and wildlife have rights, too
Fish and wildlife have rights, too
Cow-free crowd ignores science, sprawl
The West is tiny when pitted against our imagining of it. We imagined the buffalo would never be extinguished and the beaver would never be trapped out. We imagined big trees would always stand over the next ridge. But in a short time, the mountain men and buffalo hunters and loggers rolled over this alleged…
Ranching advocates lack a rural vision
In the summer of 2000, in the midst of one of the most intense droughts in the Southwest in decades, I was radicalized by fire. During an 11-day backpack across the Gila Wilderness, my companion and I came across one of the rarest events in the cow-burnt landscapes of the West – a gentle fire,…
Superfund: On the Hill… on the ground
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. ON THE HILL: 1980 President Carter signs the Superfund bill into law, funded by $1.6 billion from an excise tax on the chemical and petroleum industries. The newly created Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry assesses the health effects of more than 65,000…
Brownfields program makes cleanup profitable
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. While Congress and President Bush allow the Superfund cleanup program to bleed out, they’re pumping money into a related program called “Brownfields.” In January, President Bush approved $250 million for Brownfields, and is now asking Congress to double the program’s funding over the next…
What Dick Cheney might have learned in Rock Springs, Wyoming
It’s too bad that Dick Cheney didn’t stick around longer in Rock Springs back when he was growing up in the deep West. He worked in the Wyoming city decades ago, in the early 1960s, after he flunked out of Yale. For Cheney, it was a bottom-of-the-heap job, stringing electrical lines as a “groundman.” It…
Life in the wasteland
A small Utah town unearths a toxic legacy just as its only hope for rescue, the federal Superfund cleanup program, blows away
Dear friends
Kiss a super idea goodbye The rest of the world knows the West for its wide-open spaces and its national parks. And sure, the region is home to some of the nation’s most spectacular wildlands – but it’s also home to some of its most spectacular messes. Our mountain towns are pocked with the remnants…
Heard Around the West
Cabela’s of Nebraska, the consumer bible for hunters, anglers and other rugged outdoor folk, offers a novel gift for Christmas in its new catalog: Camouflage bedding. Sheets come in elusive patterns of wetlands, hardwoods and mossy oak that bring “the look and feel of the outdoors to the bedroom.” Spouses who indulge in other products,…
Outside the agency, it’s a cold, cruel world
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “The push is on to privatize federal jobs.” Displaced federal workers will likely enter a brave new world when they step outside their agencies. The life of a contract forest crew, for example, is a far cry…
Farmers band together to stave off sprawl
In California’s Central Valley, a strategy for steering growth takes shape
Condit Dam removal hits snags
Sediment behind dam could trash salmon habitat downstream