WANTED: MORE COLORADO NATIVES Trout Unlimited wants to see more wild trout in Colorado’s rivers and lakes and fewer diseased fish. If a new Wildlife Commission policy becomes a reality, the nonprofit group may get its wish. Issued in November, the state policy emphasizes restoring streams and native trout like the Colorado cutthroat – a […]
Books
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
A Better West?
The Next West’s essayists tell us that natural-resource management agencies have failed to protect either public lands or local communities from the damage done by extractive industries; what’s more, Western communities still remain dependent on federal handouts. But the writers do more than carp. Editors Donald Snow and John Baden also supply alternatives – a […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Use this book to get under the West’s skin
There is nothing historian Patricia Nelson Limerick dislikes more than the word frontier when used to describe the “advance of civilization” across the arid, lightly populated 19th century American West. She built her early career debunking the notion that the West was once an empty land settled by brave white men bearing democracy. Nevertheless, the […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Golden Dreams, Poisoned Streams
What is New Mexico’s hardrock mining reclamation law? Why was BHP Copper Co. allowed to dump untreated tailings in Papua, New Guinea’s Ok Tedi River, destroying local agriculture and the communities dependent on it? How harmful is chromium to a stream? You can find the answers in Golden Dreams, Poisoned Streams, the Mineral Policy Center’s […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Get to work
The Student Conservation Association is offering 1,200 interns an opportunity to put rhetoric into action. The SCA is seeking applications from people who want expense-paid internships in places as diverse as Alaska and Puerto Rico. Interns usually work with conservation projects in national parks and on forests, as well as on private land, doing everything […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Termite tenacity
Termites build their homes to last. The evidence is in New Mexico, where a team of University of Colorado scientists have identified termite mounds dating back to the Jurassic period, 155 million years ago. More than 100 sandstone pillars, some as high as 20 feet and six feet in diameter, were found over the last […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
More ATVers than aliens
You can search for alien life forms near Roswell, N.M., and not see them, but you can’t miss all-terrain vehicles. For the past 20 years, motor-bikers have carved tracks all around 3,530-acre Haystack Mountain. But unfettered roaming may end soon. The Roswell District of the Bureau of Land Management has finished a draft management plan […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
A chance to go wild
Utah has no rivers protected under the 1968 federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, but that might change. This month, the Forest Service released a draft report on recommendations for possible wild and scenic designation within the Uinta National Forest. This forest alone has 92 small sections of rivers eligible for designation, but the agency […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Drawing from life
“Weather is the perfect natural phenomenon for the scrutiny of the journal-keeper. It’s always happening, you don’t have to go far to check on it, and you need no sophisticated equipment to study it… Draw the various clouds and cloud formations you see, paying particular attention to their volumes in space, their lights and shadows…” […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Continental Divide Trail
You don’t have to leave your home to experience the Continental Divide Trail. Exploring the trail is now as easy as typing www.gorp.com/cdts/ and hitting return. The Continental Divide Trail Society has created a Web page for hikers to exchange information, inquire about weather conditions and find hiking partners via the Forum, the site’s on-line […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Dollars, Sense and Salmon
The Idaho Statesman is offering reprints of its landmark editorial series that argues for breaching four dams on the Lower Snake River to help save salmon populations. The series, titled Dollars, Sense and Salmon, ran three days last July, and helped push the dams issue to the forefront of Pacific Northwest political debate. Copies cost […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
League of Women Voters
Colorado phones will ring soon, and the Colorado League of Women Voters will begin to survey the public about their knowledge of the causes of water pollution. The League has received a $150,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to educate people about how to prevent household-generated contaminants such as motor oil and lawn chemicals […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
The Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act will be among the topics covered at the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and Colorado CattleWomen’s midwinter conference Dec. 4-5 in Colorado Springs, Colo. More than 250 ranchers and biologists are expected to attend this panel discussion on how the act can be modified to engage the agriculture industry in endangered species’ recovery. […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Another wild opportunity
The Bureau of Land Management has pushed 180,000 acres of Colorado outback a step closer to becoming wilderness study areas. The agency recently labeled the areas “roadless’ after completing new surveys. The surveys were prompted by the Colorado Environmental Coalition, which said the areas should have been included in the BLM’s 1980 survey of potential […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
On the road
Hitting the road could be one way to protect roadless lands. Starting Oct. 9, the Montana-based Native Forest Network is on a road trip to communities in the Northern Rockies to call attention to 10 threatened roadless areas. Among them are the Gallatin Range and Rocky Mountain Front in northern Montana, the headwaters of the […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Least loved beasts
-A coyote danced. Perhaps not. Reason tells me that he was catching his breakfast. Voles, moles, meadow mice, ground squirrels, chipmunks, and other rodents abound in the Sierra meadows. But still, his dance was a study in grace and sinuous acrobatics: A leap to clear the grass, a pounce, a toss of the head and […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
The more remote, the better
Residents of isolated Stehekin Valley, Wash., population 70, believe their community is frozen in time, and they want to keep it that way. On the northeast end of Lake Chelan, bordering North Cascades National Park and within the Lake Chelan Recreation Area, the town features a post office, hotel and bakery. But there are no […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Who will save our animals?
Greenpeace may no longer be going door to door, but another group continues its long-time canvassing, often stressing environmental issues. It distributes millions of copies of its material in about 60 languages, including Pidgin, Hiligaynon and Zulu. The July 8 issue asked on its cover: “Who Will Save Our Animals?,” with a story inside that […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
A timber country memoir
It’s hard to make straight lines stick to the earth, writes Robert Leo Heilman in Overstory: Zero; Real Life in Timber Country, and even harder in hilly Douglas County, Ore. In his book of 32 essays, Heilman returns to this theme again and again; he likes the earth’s reluctance to bend to blueprints, whether he […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Let rivers heal
A report from the Oregon State University Department of Fisheries says that current salmon habitat and river restoration efforts will fail unless they focus on entire watersheds or landscapes, rather than on a single process or species. For such a holistic approach to work, the report says, overgrazing, pollution and too much water consumption must […]