In the maiden issue of Great Basin News, editor and publisher Jon Christensen lays out the mission: “We believe the time is right to bring the Great Basin together to understand itself, to relish its own iconoclastic visions, to ponder its own quirky fate. You might consider this a test of that idea.” Christensen, who […]
Books
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Malpractice as usual
Taxpayers are paying the price because Forest Service officials in California handed out timber contracts without adequate environmental reviews, according to a report from the Washington, D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Business As Usual: A Case Study of Environmental and Fiscal Malpractice on the Eldorado National Forest describes how top managers weren’t penalized […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Rendezvous at Cove-Mallard
The Cove-Mallard logging area in central Idaho, scene of protests and arrests, may attract 500 people for this year’s Earth First! Rendezvous, June 30 through July 7. The event marks the group’s fifth year of campaigning to save trees in the largest roadless area in the lower 48 states. Mike Roselle, one of Earth First!’s […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Gold medal watchdog
To ensure that “environmentally and socially responsible choices’ are exercised in the planning of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Ivan Weber has founded the Olympic Watch League (OWL). Weber is a member of the environmental advisory board to the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee, but he warns that environmental issues are not […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Last chance for wetlands
Is the marsh in your neighborhood in danger of being bulldozed for a strip mall? In fast-growing Washington state, where experts estimate 33 to 50 percent of wetlands has been lost, that scenario isn’t farfetched. But the Washington Wetland Network (WETNET), founded by the Seattle Audubon Society, can help. WETNET is composed of more than […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Managing Natural Resources
Utah State University holds an annual Natural Resources Week symposium, and this year’s get-together April 17-19 focuses on Managing Natural Resources at the Urban Interface: The Challenge of a Changing West. Speakers include Richard Knight of Colorado State University, Luther Propst of the Sonoran Institute in Tucson, and sustainable-business advocate Paul Hawken. Contact Conference and […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Symposium on Nonviolence and Civil Disobedience
Environmental activists and students will gather on the Whitman College campus in Walla Walla, Wash., for the Symposium on Nonviolence and Civil Disobedience Earth Day weekend, April 19-21. Hosted by the Columbia River Bioregion Campaign and the college, the symposium is based on the teachings and lives of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Johann Galtung, […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Clearing the air on the Colorado Plateau
CLEARING THE AIR ON THE COLORADO PLATEAU It’s decision time for the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission, the group charged with restoring clean air to the five-state Colorado Plateau. Congress established the commission, which includes five Western governors and industry and environmental representatives, in 1991, allowing it five years to develop a plan to reduce […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Desert rendezvous
DESERT RENDEZVOUS Restoring riparian zones and passing a ballot initiative are two topics participants will talk about at the 18th annual High Desert Conference April 25-28. Sponsors of A Desert Wildlands Revival: Water, Wildlife and Wilderness in The High Desert include the Oregon Natural Desert Association, Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club and Committee for […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Tailings pile makes waves
Tailings pile makes waves Uranium mine tailings piled on the banks of the Colorado River near Moab, Utah, will stay put if the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and Atlas Minerals Co. get their way. In a draft environmental impact statement released in January, the federal agency says reclaiming the tailings mountain on site – as the […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
They did it themselves
They did it themselves Some 200 federal employees and outside experts have developed a sweeping management plan for public lands in the six states of the Columbia River Basin. And it didn’t cost taxpayers a dime. It was done under the auspices of the nonprofit AFSEEE, the Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Just a little advice
JUST A LITTLE ADVICE A county commissioner in Colorado thinks he can help newcomers adjust to the rural parts of Larimer County. John Clarke has written a seven-page primer, The Code of the West, which includes some useful tips. About utilities: even cellular phones won’t work in all areas; Mother Nature: expansive soils can buckle […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Naked and marvelous
NAKED AND MARVELOUS The Colorado Plateau and its Drainage, a topographic map by Kenneth Perry, is the closest most of us will ever come to seeing the West from heaven. Perry combines USGS data with sophisticated Macintosh graphics to create maps that are both useful and colorful. While Raven Graphics maps are handsome and accurate, […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Arid art
Arid Art An Englishman from Cornwall in the west of England, Tony Foster is fascinated by the American West’s wilderness of eroded rocks and deserts, including Death Valley in California and the slickrock onion domes of Utah’s canyonlands. An exhibit of his latest work, Arid Lands, Watercolor Diaries of Journeys across Deserts, can be seen […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Environmental heroes
Not surprisingly, “environmental zeroes’ eclipsed “environmental heroes’ in the first session of the 104th Congress, according to the scorecard released last month by the League of Conservation Voters. The group’s 26th annual report rates lawmakers on key environmental votes, such as legislation to close national parks and to sell public lands. Contact the League of […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Small Farming in Oregon
The Oregon State University Extension Service will host a conference for owners of small farms March 29-30 at Linfield College in McMinnville. Small Farming in Oregon will offer more than 40 workshops on subjects ranging from water rights to mushroom and ginseng production. Registration is $25 for one day and $40 for both days. Contact […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
The Native Home of Hope: Community, Ecology and the West
Missoula Mayor Daniel Kemmis, author Terry Tempest Williams and other Westerners will speak at the Wallace Stegner Center Symposium, called The Native Home of Hope: Community, Ecology and the West. The symposium, scheduled for April 12-13 at the University Park Hotel in Salt Lake City, will explore themes of cooperation and ecosystem management in the […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Our living resources
OUR LIVING RESOURCES Consider a two-inch-thick tome produced by the federal government and your eyelids are likely to fall. If the volume is Our Living Resources, your reaction could be just the opposite. Anyone interested in ecological issues may find this report indispensable. To begin with, the 530-page document holds page after page of full-color […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Dams be damned
DAMS BE DAMNED Activist Yvan Rochon wants to see two dams, built early in the century on Washington’s Elwha River, demolished (HCN, 9/18/95). “They went up as progress and we want to take them down in the name of progress,” says the 35-year-old medical researcher. Rochon and his group, the Elwha Dams Removal Fund, are […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Subterranean terror
SUBTERRANEAN TERROR “I thought if only I could get out, I’m going to get a whole new perspective on my life, because I’ve faced death square in the face.” * Dennis Workman, who was trapped in a mine for 56 hours This January, a young Utah man plunged 600 feet down a mine shaft on […]