Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Patricia Clark, Wyoming rancher: “We’ve had this place in the family for 105 years, and I’m looking to keep this in the family for another 105 years, and I want to keep it as pristine as I can. Once the damage is done, it’s […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Miles Keogh, Wyoming rancher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Miles Keogh, Wyoming rancher: “I’ve told them (drillers) all the same story. If you guys want to play hardball, I’ll play hardball. I’ve been around the block. So part of the terms and conditions of this agreement is you take total responsibility, so the […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Defending the Red Desert’s desolation
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. OREGON BUTTES, Wyo. – “This is what the pioneers saw. This is what Wyoming was,” says Mac Blewer, a 30-year-old who works for the Wyoming Outdoor Council, an environmental group headquartered in nearby Lander. From the top of a sheer-sided cliff, Blewer is looking […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Mickey Steward, coordinator for the Coal Bed Methane Coordination Coalition
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Mickey Steward, coordinator for the CoalBed Methane Coordination Coalition: “The fastest way to kill the coalbed methane industry is for gas prices to drop below a dollar. The surest way to get significant attention paid to even the slightest (industry) concerns is for gas […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Montana gets a crash course in methane
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Powder River Basin doesn’t end at the state line; about one-third of the sprawling basin lies in Montana. Though the coal seams are thinner here than in Wyoming, coalbed methane development is expected to explode in the northern third of the basin and […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
The Arctic: A slave to luck
In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything. Sometimes you get lucky, but if you don’t get lucky at the right time, you might as well not have gotten lucky at all. The folks hereabouts fighting the Bush administration’s plan to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge got a lucky break recently […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Power plant creates noisy dispute
IDAHO Sparks are flying over a proposed power plant in southeastern Idaho’s rural Canyon County. Ida-West Energy Company says it must build the plant in order to fill a projected deficit in its southern Idaho service area of 250 megawatts by 2004. But first the plant needs a county permit. Ida-West officials say the permit […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Healing the Gila
Three years after the Forest Service booted cows off some Southwestern rivers, the battle over grazing in the desert is still not over
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
One rancher stands in defiance…
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. GLENWOOD, N.M. – It took seven years for environmentalists to get cattle off 230 miles of rivers and streams across the Southwest. It took nearly three more years to get livestock off one mile of river controlled by rancher Hugh B. McKeen. Until late […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
…while another quietly moves ahead
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. ALMA, N.M. – Eight years ago, long before the Forest Service signed the agreement to reduce cattle numbers along rivers in the Gila National Forest, Sewell Goodwin voluntarily pulled his 300 cattle off the San Francisco River. With a little help from the agency, […]
Posted inOctober 8, 2001: Whoa! Canada!
Tony and the Cows
There is little doubt that conflict over environmental issues will intensify under the twin pressures of population and aspiration. It also seems likely that much of this conflict will involve public lands – those lonely, semi-arid basins and ranges where the cattle roam. From Tony and the Cowsby Will Baker In 1995, journalist and former […]
Posted inOctober 8, 2001: Whoa! Canada!
Whoa! Canada!
Activists fight an uphill battle against a gas boom along Canada’s Rocky Mountain Front
Posted inOctober 8, 2001: Whoa! Canada!
Ranchers sour on Canadian gas plant
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Call the main phone number for the big Shell Canada natural gas processing plant in rural Pincher Creek, and the first thing you hear is an automated greeting that seems to assume you’re calling about an environmental crisis: “Thank you for calling the Shell-Waterton […]
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
State proposes mother-lode mine fee
NEW MEXICO If New Mexico has its way, it will slap the state’s biggest mine with an unprecedented tab. In June, state regulatory agencies presented Phelps Dodge with a draft plan to close out the old (1910) and large (fourth largest in the country) Chino Mine near Silver City. It could cost the company $759 […]
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
Grand Teton rancher gives up grazing lease
WYOMING The largest grazing-lease holder in Grand Teton National Park plans to give up his 2,000-acre lease. Brad Mead, co-owner of the Mead-Hansen Ranch and a fourth-generation Jackson Hole rancher, says his ranch will stop grazing on public land by the end of the year. Mead acknowledged that his ranch needed a “dramatic change in […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Gas industry gambles on New Mexico mesa
Federal plan seeks balance in rare desert grasslands
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Nevada tribe says kitty litter plan stinks
Fur is flying over an open-pit clay mine
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Harvesting ancient farming
Western agriculture is a risky business. Even if crops survive the frequent summer droughts, their soil can be washed away by fast and furious monsoon rains. Brook LeVan, co-director of the nonprofit Sustainable Settings in Aspen, Colo., wants to help farmers avoid this annual double jeopardy. This summer, with the help of two teachers and […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Showdown on the Nevada range
Ranchers trespass on public lands, says the BLM
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Blackfeet bet on wind
MONTANA Montana’s Blackfeet Nation is a step ahead in the race to generate new, renewable sources of power. Using two of its most abundant natural resources – land and wind – the 15,000-member tribe is partnering with a private wind-power firm to build the first large-scale wind-energy project on tribal land. Blackfeet WindPower One is […]