OREGON The Siskiyou National Forest, home to five Wild and Scenic rivers, a healthy salmon and steelhead population, and rare salamanders and wolverines, just lost protection from the drill. In January 2001, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt placed a temporary moratorium on new mining leases for more than 1.2 million acres of the forest. The Bureau […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Restoring the West, goat by goat
In the early 1990s, Leslie Barclay bought a ranch a half-hour south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was from back East, and like many newcomers to the West with some money and energy, she was romantic about the region and the land. She understood that it wasn’t in great shape, but she thought it […]
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Interior’s conflicting interests
Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles is in a pickle. Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency effectively delayed the drilling of 39,000 coalbed-methane wells in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin – a major energy project Griles and the Bush administration had hoped to expedite (HCN, 11/5/01: Wyoming’s powder keg ). The EPA rated Interior’s environmental […]
Posted inMay 13, 2002: Beyond ecology: Restoring a cultural landscape
New hope for abandoned mines
Touch polluted water and it’s yours forever – or at least the liability is. All across the West, well-meaning citizens have shied away from cleaning up abandoned hardrock mines and their polluted streams for fear they could be held responsible under the Clean Water Act. Now, U.S. Reps. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Bob Schaffer, R-Colo., […]
Posted inMay 13, 2002: Beyond ecology: Restoring a cultural landscape
Where free trade is more than an acronym
It’s early when Ana Maria and I arrive at the onion fields, so early that we have to use the lights of a growling tractor to guide us along the rows. I stumble through the mud behind Ana, listening to the sounds of slamming doors and shouted saludos drift through the cold, damp air. When […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Walla Walla Basin sidesteps a water war
MILTON-FREEWATER, Ore. – For more than 100 years, the Walla Walla River has dried up each summer like clockwork, as its water is shunted off to farms on the river’s journey from Oregon’s Blue Mountains to the Columbia River in eastern Washington. Endangered bull trout and steelhead have been stranded in shallow pools, and volunteers […]
Posted inApril 15, 2002: Raising a stink
Raising a stink
Factory dairies catch Idaho’s Magic Valley by surprise
Posted inApril 15, 2002: Raising a stink
Silver Valley residents sue for damages
IDAHO Residents of Idaho’s Silver Valley want five former mining companies to pay for a medical monitoring program that would detect health effects from lead and arsenic contamination for up to 100,000 people in the Coeur d’Alene Basin. Filed in January in state court, the residents’ class action suit alleges that five mining companies in […]
Posted inApril 15, 2002: Raising a stink
‘You start over new’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Dean Swager moved his dairy farm from Southern California’s Chino Valley to Idaho’s Magic Valley in October of 2000. Dean Swager: “My father started in the dairy business in 1943 in the Bellflower area (in Southern California). He moved several times in that area […]
Posted inApril 15, 2002: Raising a stink
‘The odors were beyond description’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Until recently, Sena McKnight lived in the middle of several dairy farms outside Twin Falls, Idaho. Sena McKnight: “We moved here six years ago, and at the time there was not much development. Two years ago, Hank Hafliger’s dairy started up, a mile to […]
Posted inApril 15, 2002: Raising a stink
‘Big for the sake of big is not good’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bill Stoltzfus owns a small registered Holstein dairy in Buhl, Idaho. He moved to the Magic Valley from Pennsylvania in 1992. Bill Stoltzfus: “(We have) about 85 milk cows. Everybody has a name and they are all individuals. A few of them are actually […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
Alternative livestock searches for a niche
Emu, ostrich, elk and bison industries plummet
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
Bush turns BLM into energy machine
In November, quietly and without fanfare, Acting Director of the Bureau of Land Management Nina Rose Hatfield created a National Energy Office to implement President Bush’s energy policy. Its sole purpose, according to BLM documents, is to expedite drilling and mining on public lands. Last May, Bush issued Executive Order 13212, which stresses that it […]
Posted inMay 13, 2002: Beyond ecology: Restoring a cultural landscape
Energy boom’s forward guard stalls out in Utah … for now
Despite setback, drive to explore the West continues
Posted inMay 13, 2002: Beyond ecology: Restoring a cultural landscape
Land board says, ‘Look before you lease’
Activists say they have discovered development’s Achilles’ heel
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
Who’s bringing home the bacon?
Imagine discovering your salary and assets posted on the Internet. Farmers throughout the nation are finding their names listed on the Web, along with the amount of federal subsidies they’ve received since the passage of the 1996 Farm Bill. The Environmental Working Group retrieved and compiled the data under the Freedom of Information Act. “I […]
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
BLM’s coalbed methane plan disappoints enviros
The federal government wants to allow gas companies to drill nearly 40,000 new coalbed methane wells in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin over the next 10 years. That many wells would quadruple the number currently in Wyoming and increase the nationwide tally by almost 70 percent. The plan is outlined in the draft Powder River Basin […]
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
EPA wants to supersize Idaho Superfund site
State and federal officials squabble over how to clean up the Silver Valley
Posted inMarch 4, 2002: Seed in the ground
Colorado oil shale gets a second look
Shell Oil hopes pilot project will go commercial
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Battle brews over a wilderness mother lode
Activists say Montana’s Rock Creek Mine would harm grizzly, bull trout and clean water