The Missoula, Mont., group Women’s Voices for the Earth has an alternative to a proposed gold mine on the Blackfoot River: Mine Your Jewelry Box, Not the Blackfoot. The group started collecting gold jewelry last May to support public education and lawsuits aimed at stopping the McDonald gold project (HCN, 12/22/97). So far, people have […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Feds propose weak organic food rules
For Colorado rancher Mel Coleman, a lot hangs on a definition. His family began raising cattle on the open range in 1875 and has never used chemicals. A century later, Coleman discovered that people would pay more for his beef if he added the word “natural” to the labels. In the years that followed, Coleman […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
A few fish may move a mountain of tailings
Thank the squawfish, say community activists in Moab, Utah. In the latest round of a long controversy, the endangered fish may be the lever that moves 10 million tons of radioactive uranium tailings away from the banks of the Colorado River. Last spring, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ruled that Atlas Minerals could leave the […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
The secret’s out
Despite a court order, a grand jury’s “secret” report on the Rocky Flats bomb factory in Colorado is out of the closet. Anti-nuke activists have had copies for years, and the full report has been posted on the World Wide Web at www.downwinders.org/rocky_fl.htm. Nevertheless, few have been privy to what the so-called runaway grand jury […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Mined-over region resents EPA scrutiny
For 15 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has removed mine tailings, covered contaminated lawns and monitored people’s blood for lead and other dangerous heavy metals found within the 21-mile-long Bunker Hill Superfund Site in northern Idaho. Now, with the work nearly done, the federal agency has set its sights on something much bigger – the […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Tribes protest Ward Valley dump site
Since early February, protesters from five Native American tribes have camped out near a proposed nuclear waste storage site in Ward Valley, Calif. The Bureau of Land Management, which wants to finish studying the site, ordered the 30 or so people off the land by Feb. 19. But on Feb. 25, the BLM stopped policing […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
Feds ready to get WIPPed
Twenty-three years after the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., was first proposed, the controversial $2.5 billion underground storage facility is scheduled to open this spring. The Department of Energy formally approved the project on Jan. 23, and the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to certify it in May. Department of Energy officials […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
Learning sustainable technology
They’re not the Bureau of Reclamation, but they will teach you how to build a dam. A very small dam, that is. Solar Energy International (SEI) will offer courses in water, wind and solar power during its 1998 Renewable Energy Education Program. Over the past 16 years the Carbondale, Colo., nonprofit has established renewable energy […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
For some, horse meat ain’t all bad
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Although most Americans would never think of chowing down on a horse, their distaste is not shared by the French, the Belgians, or many other continental Europeans. Not to mention the Japanese. The reasons for such varying tastes were analyzed by Marvin Harris in […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
Waste to snake through West
Nuclear waste may be coming soon through rural Western communities. As early as June, the U.S. Department of Energy plans to ship five loads of nuclear waste through Concord, Calif., to a federal storage facility near Idaho Falls in eastern Idaho. The waste, spent nuclear fuel rods from Asia, is a legacy of the Eisenhower […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 1998: Private rights vs. public lands
A scarlet “A’ for ASARCO?
A controversial open-pit copper mine proposed for the Santa Rita Mountains of southern Arizona (HCN, 9/1/97) has been put on hold. In a Jan. 21 letter from ASARCO Inc. to the Coronado National Forest, the company blamed low copper prices for the pullout and said the project would be delayed for “at least a couple […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Red meat can be green
The “dolphin-friendly” label gave tuna an environmental face-lift in the 1980s; now, a “Wolf Country Beef” label may do the same for hamburger. The label is the brainchild of Jim Winder and Will Holder, ranchers who have teamed up with the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife. They’re developing the seal-of-approval so that beef coming from ranchers […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Oil leasing sparks debate
OIL LEASING SPARKS DEBATE The U.S. Forest Service’s proposal to open 370,000 acres south of Yellowstone National Park to oil and gas leasing is drawing opposition. The proposal centers on Wyoming, home to wildlife, including wolves and grizzly bears. Environmentalists say drilling threatens the area that serves as a wildlife corridor between the Gros Ventre […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
State fights nuclear waste shipments
In a measure environmental groups say will put 50 million Americans at risk of radiation exposure, Congress recently authorized storage of 50,000 tons of nuclear waste at the Nevada Test Site. Opponent Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., dubbed the bill “Mobile Chernobyl,” because it funds the transportation of spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants in […]
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 inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
A radical approach to mine reclamation
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. SILVERTON, Colo. – The Sunnyside Mine near here is an odd place for marking progress. The mine offers gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc, but has a treacherous history. Different companies have tried to make it work since 1874 and have shut it down […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Homestake shows how good a mine can be
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. MCLAUGHLIN MINE, Calif. – Homestake Mining Co.” s Ray Krauss ambles along the banks of a lake his firm built to supply water to its McLaughlin Mine in Northern California. He talks glowingly about his 17 years as manager of environmental affairs. First he […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
This reclamation plan uses waste to bury waste
Note: This article accompanies another feature story in this special issue on hardrock mining and reclamation. WELLPINIT, Wash. – At 7:30 on the evening of April 4, 1954, twin brothers Jim and John LaBret loaded a finicky $54 Geiger counter into Jim’s blue “46 Chrysler and set off on a moonlight mission to find uranium. […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Is our love of the West destroying Chile?
I was drafting this essay, when Bill Brewster, former congressman from Oklahoma and now president of a Washington lobbying company, stuck his head into my office: “Do you know any companies that would be interested in buying gold concessions in Azerbaijan? Their Minister of Privitization is a friend of mine, and he wants to put […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Give the mining industry a second chance…
Dear HCN, As a thrice-starved-out Montanan, I have a different take on mining than writer Heather Abel in your Dec. 22, 1997, issue. There are aspects of mining and its politics that High Country News should not have glossed over. A prime example is the so-called Clean Water Initiative, I-122. It failed in the 1996 […]