Love your Grandmother A grassroots group called Grandmother’s Friends wants help in barring chainsaws from a roadless area called Grandmother Mountain in northern Idaho’s panhandle. A proposed timber sale would cut 7.8 million board-feet out of the wilderness 50 miles northwest of Moscow. “The area contains some very scenic and diverse habitats that wildlife depend […]
Books
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
In their footprints
In their footprints When they mysteriously disappeared from the Southwest some 700 years ago, Anasazi Indians left behind intricate ruins and painted or pecked designs on rock as powerful testimony to their civilization. The desert also preserved a more fragile reminder – sandals woven from yucca leaves, in which the footprints of the wearers are […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
How to nominate an environmental innovator
Hoping to galvanize the environmental movement in the United States, one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in the world began five years ago to give money directly to the country’s best and brightest conservationists. It’s the Pew Charitable Trust’s Pew Scholars Program, which so far has doled out 50 grants of $150,000 to people from […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Our hot legacy
OUR HOT LEGACY “Where and how will we treat and dispose of the backlog of wastes from nuclear weapons production? How clean is clean? Should we exhume large volumes of contaminated soil in order to allow for unlimited use of the land in the future? To foster a sustained and informed public debate on these […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
You can’t cut them all
The Forest Service drastically overestimated the number of trees it could cut from Northwest forests, according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO found that the Forest Service exaggerated allowable sale quantities for three of the most productive forests in the region – the Deschutes, Gifford Pinchot and Mount Hood. […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Gambling with small towns
In three Colorado mountain towns where gambling has been allowed since 1990, four out of 10 residents would now like to move out, according to a study by the University of Colorado. Knocking on every door, researchers found that residents want to take flight because of the rapid and drastic changes in their communities. Although […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Tales from the West
The in-laws are a steady, insistent, increasingly frantic chorus of disapproval over her plans. But, Mary! How can you expect to go to college and take good care of a husband and a baby? Finally, We’re going to put our foot down! She knows that somehow she has got to extricate herself from these sappy […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Grass-roots strategy for salmon
Hoping to sway the outcome of a pending federal recovery plan for Snake River salmon, 45 environmental and fishing groups have come up with a plan of their own. The groups, all members of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition, recently presented their 45-page recommendation, Wild Salmon Forever, to the National Marine Fisheries Service. It […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Enjoyment enough to kill
My first view of the High Sierra, first view looking down into Yosemite, the death song of Yosemite Creek, and its flight over the vast cliff, each one of these is of itself enough for a great life-long landscape fortune – a most memorable of days – enjoyment enough to kill if that were possible […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Wheel Your Way through Winter
WHEEL YOUR WAY THROUGH WINTER There is more to winter driving than turning on the heater full blast, buckling up and stepping on the gas. According to a 15-minute instructional video out of Wyoming, the most important winter driving factor is your choice of tires. People from warm climates often come to the inland West […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Trimming pork the green way
Hoping to force the Republican Congress to keep its word and cut the budget, environmentalists and liberal Democrats have targeted dozens of federally subsidized programs. The 40-page Green Scissors Report, written by Friends of the Earth and the National Taxpayers Union, aims to trim $33 billion in federal pork. Colorado’s long-delayed and controversial Animas-LaPlata dam […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Want to sponsor a wolf?
The nonprofit Wolf Education and Research Center, in Ketchum, Idaho, has begun a new program encouraging people to contribute directly to the annual costs of returning wolves to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho. It supports logistical expenses, estimated at over $500,000, which include radio collars and tracking equipment as well as field operations. The […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 1995: No more ignoring the obvious: Idaho sucks itself dry
Bare land at Bear Lake
People who live near drought-plagued Bear Lake, along the Idaho-Utah border, don’t want to see water levels drop another four feet. Yet dredging by Utah Power & Light, which aims to dig a 2,000-foot channel to a pumping station at the north end of the lake, would do just that. The company needs the water […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Raising hell
Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge on earth and one of the most spectacular canyons in the country, may one day resemble Disneyland, warns one critic. “Envision this place,” says Ric Bailey, director of the Hells Canyon Preservation Council. “It’s a backcountry place with dusty unpaved roads. The Forest Service is going to turn it into […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
RX for forests
In response to last year’s devastating fire season, the Forest Service has proposed 330 projects over the next two years to reduce the threat of disease and fire while producing an estimated 1.5 to 2 billion board-feet of timber. Some 1 million acres would be affected, including as much as 150,000 acres on roadless areas. […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
For forest activists
Forest activists will gather in Ashland, Ore., Jan. 13-16 to discuss ways to attract more people to their cause and promote public awareness of forest issues. The fourth annual West Coast Ancient Forest Activists Conference, sponsored by the nonprofit group Headwaters, also features workshops exploring President Clinton’s Forest Plan to protect watersheds. Conference organizers hope […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Colorado booming
Colorado residents concerned about the fast pace and scale of growth in their state are invited to attend a Summit on Smart Growth and Development, in Denver, Jan. 25-26. Gov. Roy Romer will host the gathering, which costs $60. The governor’s office plans to hold regional meetings after the summit to allow participation. The registration […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Grim reading
A consortium of six scientific groups reports that the Eastside forests of Washington and Oregon are in perilous ecological shape. According to the scientists, who did their work at the request of seven U.S. representatives, the forests are almost completely fragmented or debased, and streams are in such bad shape that “large numbers of fish […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Delay again for R.S. 2477
In a surprise move, the Interior Department extended its comment period a third time on R.S. 2477, a law adopted in 1866 to spur colonizing of the West. R.S. 2477 granted a right-of-way to rural counties for the construction of highways on public lands (HCN, 3/21/94). When Congress repealed the law in 1976, pre-existing claims […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
The education of a scientist
Edmund Wilson tells us he wrote his autobiography, Naturalist, to learn more fully “why I now think the way I do … and perhaps, to persuade.” The Harvard University professor, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, can’t really convey what made him a consummate biologist who taught the world the significance of biodiversity. But he can […]