A right-wing coup is under way in the nation’s courts, which George W. Bush is stacking with anti-environmental judges, and the impacts on Western conservation issues are not going to be pretty.
Also in this issue: National Park Service wilderness coordinator Jim Walters resigns in frustration over the agency’s neglect of wilderness, after the superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks allows helicopters in wilderness areas.
Tipping the scales
For four decades, the federal courts have stood up for environmental laws. If George W. Bush has his way, that will soon be ancient history.
Owens River will finally get its water back
CALIFORNIA A 33-year legal saga that has delayed one of the most ambitious river restorations ever attempted in California is over, thanks to a last-minute lawsuit by the state’s attorney general. Inyo County’s Lower Owens River has been dry since 1913, when it was diverted to supply water to Los Angeles, 250 miles to the…
Are Mormons really green
I just read with interest the essay on Mormonism and environmental ethics (HCN, 12/22/03: Being Green in the Land of the Saints). It’s always a learning experience to read about how individuals cash out their own views within the framework of a larger entity, in this case Mormonism, and the positions held by various founders…
Salmon get a break from pesticides
WEST COAST Protection for the Northwest’s salmon just took a major leap forward. In a landmark ruling, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour banned the use of 38 pesticides near streams that host threatened and endangered runs of salmon and steelhead in Washington, Oregon and California. The ruling follows a July 2002 decision, in which Judge…
Too much Mormon hype
It appears that another good, conservation-oriented publication has succumbed to the LDS propaganda machine. We pay for a balanced publication, not just another extension of the Ensign. If I wanted more PR from the LDS, then I would get it free from the missionaries. It is not enough that the Mormons now own D.C. and…
Rollbacks on the range
NATION To help public-lands ranchers and “preserve open space,” the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans to revise its nine-year-old grazing regulations. Some say those changes will let cattlemen ride roughshod over public lands. In 1995, President Clinton’s Interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, overhauled the rules that control ranching on public lands (HCN, 04/17/95: Back to…
Climbers: Get with it
“Good job” to HCN for making waves in the climbing community (HCN, 7/7/03: Invasion of the rock jocks). Until climbers take the most basic step of using chalk that is color-matched to the rock they are climbing on, their environmental ethics should be questioned. Red sandstone boulders and cracks, yellow quartzite cliffs, grey limestone faces,…
No place for pesky nuclear waste
NEW MEXICO If an energy company and a Republican senator get their way, southern New Mexico will get even hotter than its habañeros. The European-owned company LES plans to build a facility near Eunice to produce nuclear reactor fuel, but it still doesn’t have anywhere to store the highly toxic, radioactive byproduct (HCN, 10/13/03: New…
The elephant in the room
Utah isn’t the only state whose population shies “away from the issue of population growth and large families” (HCN, 12/22/03: Being Green in the Land of the Saints). Politicians of every stripe from every state refuse to talk about it. This, in spite of recent articles about the drought that is hammering the West while…
Population growth is the problem
Thanks for your preliminary comments on the need to address population growth in the West (HCN, 12/22/03: Being Green in the Land of the Saints). However, the issue needs to be addressed in the West, nationwide, and worldwide by people who seriously think about environmental quality and humanity’s future. It’s clear that our species has…
Tongue-tied in the Southwest
There’s no denying that some Spanish speakers get frustrated with the dialect that’s spoken in New Mexico and southern Colorado. Take, for instance, the Jemez Mountains. Anyone who’s sat through a high school Spanish class would say “HEM-es.” Don’t try that in New Mexico: Those are the “hay-mez” Mountains. Luckily, Rubén Cobos, a professor for…
Calendar
The Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute’s 13th annual land-use conference will be held in Denver on March 11 and 12. Guest speakers include Carolyn Raffensperger, director of Science and Environmental Health Network, and Hal Clifford, executive editor of The Orion Society; panels range from “Land Use Decisions and Water Quality” to “Smart Growth, Nimbyism and…
Follow-up
President Bush is ready to “meet the environmental challenges of the future”: If approved by Congress, his $2.4 trillion proposed budget will cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 7.2 percent. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which administers the National Marine Fisheries Service, will receive $300 million less than it did in 2004. The…
Big cats on the block
In The Beast in the Garden, David Baron weaves a compelling parable of man and animal, of the Old West and the New West, of wildlife that is no longer wild. Looking back at the history of mountain lions in Boulder County, Colo., over the past 150 years, he writes about our changing relationship with…
Enforce immigration laws now
As a law-abiding citizen of the United States of America, I am outraged at politicians who will not address the issue of illegal immigration. Now the whole issue is complicated by President Bush’s immigration plan (HCN, 2/2/04: Immigration reform from Washington, D.C.). This plan is not a solution to the problems and will only escalate…
What does Mormonism have to do with it
The issue of environmental consciousness cannot be framed around the issue of whether you are or are not LDS (HCN, 12/22/03: Being Green in the Land of the Saints). It’s certainly an interesting slant for the article, but whether your religion is LDS is no more an indication of your environmental slant than is race,…
Heard around the West
UTAH Some people in rural subdivisions worship the wandering moose on their doorstep; others go for their guns. Jack Fenton, a worshipper in Summit County, says he was thrilled when a yearling moose moseyed up to his front door to nibble on a wreath. But his neighbor shot and killed the moose — and also…
Solving the puzzle of chronic wasting disease: Veterinarian Beth Williams
LARAMIE, WYOMING — Stacks of histopathologies — gray folders filled with the tissue of dead animals — litter the floor of Dr. Beth Williams’ office at the University of Wyoming’s State Veterinary Lab in Laramie. Crowded into the office with a computer and a microscope table, they leave little room for Williams herself. The morbid…
Jurisdiction shopping made simple
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Tipping the scales.” Dee Benson U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, Utah A former staffer for Sen. Orrin Hatch; appointed in 1991 by Republican George H.W. Bush Quick take Off-road drivers love his courtroom Anti-green cases 1995 — rejected a challenge to ORV…
Congress overrules the courts
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Tipping the scales.” Even when environmentalists do emerge victorious from court, their celebrations are often short-lived: Congress can overturn a court’s interpretation of an existing law by passing a new one. It’s not a new tactic, but it’s one that is especially favored by…
Nation’s premier environmental group is target of a takeover
Last year, over 750,000 people joined or renewed their membership in the Sierra Club, presumably because they believe in its historic mission to protect America’s public lands and wilderness for future generations. John Muir and a small band of conservationists founded the Club in 1892, and it’s been working for more than a century to…
Why I’m running: Immigration is the environmental issue
Because I believe that environmental organizations have ducked the immigration-population issue too long, I am running for the board of directors of the Sierra Club. I am not part of a slate; I represent only myself and the issues I care deeply about. One of the most important challenges of public policy is to recognize…
In conservation contests, there are no slam dunks
I remember the first big story I covered for High Country News. It was back in the spring of 1994, and my headline shouted, “The salmon win one: Judge tells agencies to obey the law.” The story focused on federal Judge Malcolm Marsh’s landmark ruling, in which he told the National Marine Fisheries Service that…
Dear friends
Give and Take Inside this issue of High Country News, you’ll find a flier for our newest book, called Give and Take: How the Clinton Administration’s Public Lands Offensive Transformed the American West. It pulls together our best coverage of the national monument spree engineered by Clinton and his Interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, along with…
Park Service wilderness in disarray
Departing wilderness boss blasts the agency
Mining may no longer be king of the mountain
Court ruling gives land managers power to say ‘no’ to mining companies
Ethanol takes off in the West
But is it a wonder fuel — or an energy-losing proposition?