Francis Bardanouve is not the man you might expect to see leading one of the year’s most contested environmental initiatives. A rancher from Harlem, Mont., he spent nearly 30 years in the state Legislature, where he was known as a conservative Democrat. But along with a businessman, a retired rancher and a Republican legislator, Bardanouve […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Will Idaho voters derail nuclear trains?
It’s easy to see how the politically powerful of Idaho stand on storing nuclear waste in the state: Gov. Phil Batt signed an agreement a year ago allowing more than a thousand such shipments to enter the state in exchange for a pledge that existing waste leave the state by 2035 (HCN, 9/2/96). Republican Sen. […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Judge sends a message to cows
A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that the state can decide how, and even whether, cows that pollute waterways can graze on federal lands. U.S. District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty said Sept. 27 that the Clean Water Act requires all applications for grazing permits on national forests to first undergo a state review to […]
Posted inOctober 14, 1996: Greens prune their message to win the West's voters
Who you gonna call?
Are you distressed about a nearby mine polluting streams, groundwater or soils? The Mineral Policy Center in Washington, D.C., might be able to help. It recently published the Green Mining Guide: Mining Experts You Can Call, which lists 101 consultants, government employees and mining specialists from across the country. The experts range from hydrologists and […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Small is back
Is the small American farm a dying species? Not according to Jeff Rast, founder of the for-profit Center for Small Acreage Farming in Camas County, Idaho. After working on a large-scale farm for 10 years and serving as an extension agent for the University of Idaho, Rast says he has realized his dream of operating […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Not coal alone
-Today’s power industry has nearly all of its eggs in the fossil fuel basket,” says the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies (LAW), a policy group based in Boulder, Colo. Its 19-page report, How the West Can Win: A Blueprint for a Clean & Affordable Energy Future, imagines a different scenario: a lesser but […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
It ain’t over till it’s over
When President Clinton announced a $65 million land swap with Crown Butte Resources Inc. to stop development of a gold mine on the boundary of Yellowstone National Park, it sounded like a done deal. But federal officials have only six months to come up with property that Crown Butte must agree to accept; if not, […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Feds go after Summitville boss
Taxpayers got mixed news in late August about the cleanup of southern Colorado’s notorious Summitville gold mine. The good news came from the Justice Department, which announced that it had convinced a Canadian bank to freeze $152 million in stocks owned by the mining executive who oversaw Summitville. That mine’s toxic wastes killed 17 miles […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
All is not quiet on the Front
Though oil and gas developers have long had their eyes on the vast reserves that geologists say lie beneath Montana’s rugged Rocky Mountain Front, environmental concerns have held most of them at bay. Now, a more immediate threat looms over the area. Wyoming businessman Mark Alldredge has filed 104 mining claims over 3.4 square miles […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 1996: Can this man break the right's grip on Idaho?
Uranium poisons Navajo neighborliness
CROWNPOINT, N.M. – The water in this town on the eastern side of the Navajo Nation is so pure that people drive from as far as 80 miles to fill their barrels. But some fear it will be tainted if a proposed uranium mine gets approved next year. “All it will take is one accident […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Multicultural grazing boards off to a good start
DENVER, Colo. – Call them the cowboy and the lady. He is T. Wright Dickinson, tall, rail-thin, a third-generation rancher living on 35,000 high-desert acres in northwestern Colorado. She is Kathy Carlson, dressed in an ankle-length dress, glasses framing a tanned face, a veteran of Washington, D.C., politics for the National Wildlife Federation who moved […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Grazing bill returns for another round
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another new article titled “Multicultural grazing boards off to a good start.” If Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has his way, the Resource Advisory Committees, which just turned one year old, will never reach their second birthday. A bill sponsored by […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Waste creeps toward Yucca Mountain
Nevada’s Yucca Mountain is one step closer to becoming a temporary nuclear waste dump. Republicans rushed a bill to the Senate floor before the August break that would clear the way for shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain as early as 1998 (HCN, 4/1/96). It passed in late July despite an attempted filibuster by Democratic […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Radioactive waste is hot issue in Idaho
BOISE, Idaho – Nuclear waste critics have taken on Idaho Gov. Phil Batt with a bang. In 10 weeks they collected 52,000 valid signatures – some 10,000 more than were needed – to get a “Stop the Shipments” initiative on the November ballot. If voters say yes Nov. 3, not only will Batt’s agreement to […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Grassroots grit beat ‘the mine from Hell’
The campaign to stop the New World Gold Mine on Yellowstone National Park’s northern boundary could rank with the great environmental victories of the 20th century. It’s not so much what happened as how it happened. Mine opponents started with a textbook grassroots plan to stop the $600 million gold mine. They ended with a […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Yellowstone mine a goner
A year after President Clinton announced his opposition to a proposed gold mine just outside Yellowstone National Park, he delivered the goods. At an Aug. 12 press conference in the park, Clinton announced that Crown Butte Mine Inc. had agreed to give up its mine project in exchange for unspecified real estate valued at no […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
A tree did it
On July 2, a blackout in the West left 2 million people without electricity. The culprit, it turns out, was a cottonwood tree in southeastern Idaho. Or perhaps it was the maintenance folks who allowed this lone tree to grow so close to a power line that electricity jumped to it. When this “flashover” occurred […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Sowing the red suns of August
This was my dream: I wanted vines obscenely thick with tomatoes, a constellation of what my friend John calls his “red suns of August.” Early Girls and Romas; don’t forget peppers and some cucumbers snaking around my feet as well, and a long hedge of basil. I wanted to walk into the garden, maybe barefoot […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Marching to stop a Montana mine
If a successful protest is any kind of bellwether, Montana’s long tolerance of mining may be coming to an end. When a group composed mostly of Native Americans marched 600 miles from South Dakota to Montana to protest a gold mine last June, people from local communities supported them every step of the way. March […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
Mine your own business
When a Canadian mining subsidiary showed up last year in the 1,500-person mountain community of Yarnell, Ariz., mine officials announced they were re-opening an open-pit gold mine that had been closed since 1942. Angry locals immediately formed Guardians for the Rural Environment, and members hope they can halt the cyanide heap-leach mine. They’ve asked the […]