HCN lays out the West’s 10 most critical issues and the paths toward positive results on everything from energy development and drought to federal agency practices and endangered species.
Also in this issue: A judge rules against a plan to salvage-log old-growth forest from the Timbered Rock Fire in Oregon, and some say the ruling could affect other proposed fire sales in old-growth forests.
Nice work, Adam Burke
HCN arrived this afternoon and I’ve already finished Adam Burke’s “Keepers of the Flame” (HCN, 11/8/04: Keepers of the Flame). Excellent. Especially happy to have found it in HCN, given all those dark mutterings of a couple of years ago about making the paper punchier and more attractive to young ’uns by shortening articles. I’d…
Four more years? Help!
Well, now we can only watch to see if Bush’s administration cooks the entire elephant in its own oil. As my friend James says, borrowing from Robert Reich: “Middle-class workers voting for Bush are like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders. “Millions of chickens voted for Colonel Sanders on Tuesday. “What’s for dinner for the next…
Wanted: Environmental Leaders
The HCN profile of Stewart and Mo Udall is an excellent account of their heroic achievements to protect and to save the resources of the West (HCN, 10/11/04: The First Family of Western Conservation). Perhaps Mark and Tom Udall, with the genes and the same determination, will continue the legacy of the fathers. But, as…
Living poor and voting rich
Your two-part series on the plight of the ski bum inspired this letter (HCN, 10/25/04: As the town hollows out, one Aspen neighborhood thrives) (HCN,.11/8/04: A new breed of ‘ski bums’ is anything but). Aspen is what it is today because young bohemians who supposedly believed in equality among the classes, wanted to shut the…
Lessons from the Netherlands
In response to Geneen Marie Haugen’s essay (HCN, 11/8/04: American — and proud of it): I’m sorry those Dutch were rude. As a Dutch-American woman, I know that being confronted with the Dutch sense of righteousness can be disconcerting. The population is well known for its ever-wagging “Little Dutch finger.” However, Holland — in fact…
Toxic waste, tainted justice
Between 1952 and 1989, Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant — just 16 miles outside Denver — was the country’s headquarters for weapons of mass destruction. Workers there produced more than 700 plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs in the Cold War arsenal. But in 1989, following allegations of radioactive groundwater contamination and illegally burned and lost…
Calendar
The 8th annual Saving Places Conference will be held in Denver on Feb. 2-4. Sponsored by Colorado Preservation Inc., the 2005 conference is entitled “Bringing Preservation Home.” www.coloradopreservation.org 303-893-4260 Colorado State University has just released “Bio-Pharming in Colorado: A Guide to Issues for Making Informed Choices,” a policy report geared toward Colorado’s decision-makers and interested…
Grand plan for Grand Canyon
Every year, more than 22,000 people run the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Amazingly, there is still a list of 8,000 private, non-commercial boaters who have waited up to 15 years to get on the ultimate whitewater run in the country. That waiting list is among several reasons the National Park Service has released…
Follow-up
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R, says he won’t ask the federal government to uphold the Clinton-era roadless rule in his state (HCN, 8/16/04:Feds pass roadless headache to states). In July, the Bush administration gave governors until January 2006 to request that the governnment keep the rule in place in their respective states. Meanwhile, Wyoming Gov.…
Californians put their money where their meter is
California reached a conservation milestone in September, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R, signed a bill requiring all homes in the state to use water meters by 2025. Existing California law requires water meters on all houses built since 1992, but most utilities charge a flat rate, rather than using the meters to charge by…
Transforming the Forest Service: Maverick bureaucrat Wendy Herrett
Since the frontier age, the West’s forests have been home to all kinds of rogues and rebels, from family logging operations to stubborn ranchers to hard-core eco-defenders. And for nearly as long, the U.S. Forest Service has been charged with keeping them all in balance. But sometimes, the Forest Service needs its own mavericks. For…
Brace yourselves for the counterrevolution
Consider the matter of Row v. Wade. No, that’s not a misspelling. We’re talking fishing here, and the never-ending debate, raged with greatest fervor along rivers in the Rocky Mountain West, over whether the best way to catch fish is from a boat or while walking through the water. And just what does this have…
Taking the West Forward
Facing four more years with the Bush administration, it’s time to seek fresh paths through the terrain ahead
Looking outside the box
This issue’s cover story is a bit of a departure for us. Usually, we print an in-depth story from a single author on a topic we believe will resonate with readers throughout the West. But pivotal moments in history can prod even the most ardent adherents of routine to venture outside their boxes. And this…
Together, we cross the fence
“My credo has always been: Don’t take yourself too seriously, and never give up.” –Tom Bell, founder of High Country News, speaking to the National Wildlife Federation, March 9, 2002 Barbed wire in the mind, I’ll call it that; a four-strand fence, let’s say, barbs sharp against chest, gut and legs, little reinforcers, reminders that…
A flurry of visitors
VISITORS A mild late fall/early winter has brought a few snowflakes to Paonia, and a flurry of visitors to the HCN headquarters. John Slone dropped in from Montrose, Colo. Subscribers David and Catie Karplus came through from Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California, where David works in utilities and grounds, and Catie studies…
Heard around the West
OREGON “It’s perfect rattlesnake country,” exulted Deputy Sheriff Dan Brewer from Sweet Home, Ore., as he walked through sagebrush in eastern Oregon at the start of a vacation. He found what he was looking for underneath a boulder, and as his family videotaped the encounter, Brewer uttered the fateful words: “I say, let’s take a…
Old-growth sales end in courts
Ruling could put the kibosh on Biscuit Fire timber salvage and cutting in old-growth reserves
A problem any city would love to have
Boulderites have poured money into protecting open space — now they want to use it