Thousands of people exposed to radiation from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington during decades of Cold War experiments have had health problems and wondered: “Am I the only one?” Now they will have a chance to share their experiences, says Bea Kelleigh, of the Hanford Health Information Network. Formed by Congress in 1991, […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Marvel ups the ante
Marvel ups the ante Sporting a bright-green button that said: “I support welfare ranching,” Hailey, Idaho, conservationist Jon Marvel bid $12,000 for the right to lease a 960-acre parcel of state land. After rancher Mike Ward bid $12,050 for the 10-year lease, Marvel folded and declared victory. “We’ve approximately tripled the cost of the lease […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Ranger charges ranchers with assault
When Chuck Oliver’s job with the Forest Service in Montana fell victim to an agency consolidation three years ago, he seized the chance to return to his native New Mexico. But Oliver, a range conservationist on the Gila National Forest in Catron County, found that public-lands grazing was much more contentious in the Southwest than […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
It’s the pits
Summo USA Corp. hopes to extract 34 million pounds of copper each year over a 10-year period from the Lisbon Valley southeast of Moab, Utah. The operation would include four open-pit mines as well as waste-rock dumps and a processing plant on 1,030 acres of public, state and private lands. According to a draft environmental […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Wyoming’s Red Desert: 15 million acres of contention
ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. – It was the Friday night before the big event, and the first of 300 conservationists bound for this oil and gas boomtown in southwestern Wyoming had started trickling in. They gathered in a local art gallery, where they snacked on hors d’oeuvres and viewed artwork of the state’s vast Red Desert, […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
A Colorado canyon faces an uncertain future
Demaree Canyon, a steep-walled sagebrush and pinon-pine expanse in the Bookcliffs area outside Grand Junction, Colo., could become part of the national wilderness system. Or the wilderness study area might be transformed this summer into a series of natural-gas drilling pads. The small canyon’s fate could set a precedent for how much development can be […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Ellensburg wins back its beauty
-Hideous,” “grotesque” and “like massive spikes in a sci-fi movie,” were some of the kinder phrases residents of Ellensburg, Wash., employed to describe an addition to their community. The addition consisted of 12 power poles, 110 feet high, erected by Central Washington University through the center of town. The looming power poles spurred the formation […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
‘Boom’ potential at Rocky Flats
-Boom” potential at Rocky Flats When the FBI raided and closed the Rocky Flats nuclear facility just outside Denver, Colo., in 1989, agents found illegal emissions of radioactive materials. But more problems were on the way. Sam Cole of Physicians For Social Responsibility says that since then, plant managers have been “spinning their wheels,” and […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
Farm bill helps the land – sort of
For more than 60 years, farmers stopped by their local farm services agency each spring and signed their names to join the farm program. It felt like insurance: If the market prices for certain crops fell below a floor, the government would pay the difference. But security came at a price. The government told producers […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Feds to Idaho mines: Clean up
Despite pleas from Idaho’s congressional delegation and governor, the federal government has filed suit against eight mining companies for polluting the Coeur d’Alene River basin in Idaho’s panhandle. The suit seeks monetary damages for the alleged discharge of more than 70 million tons of mining waste into the basin over the last 100 years. Each […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Noranda stirs up a swarm of opposition
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, A park boss goes to bat for the land. While Crown Butte Mining Inc. already owns patented land within the Gallatin National Forest, it needs additional land for its mill and waste rock. That need has set into motion the National Environmental Policy Act, […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Raising a ranch from the dead
For almost four years I have been biting down on Sid Goodloe’s story as though it were a suspicious gold coin. I have also been telling bits and pieces of it to audiences, testing ideas I wasn’t ready to put on paper. Putting it on paper meant confronting the audacity and complexity of Goodloe’s story, […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Experts line up on all sides of the tree-grass debate
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story: Raising a ranch from the dead If only Sid Goodloe had confined himself to his six or so square miles of private property. Then his would be a straightforward story about the rejuvenation of a piece of exhausted land. But Goodloe doesn’t stop at […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Dance with a cow, and the cow will lead
In 1985, in mid-career, I went back to college. I wanted to be a range conservationist. At the time, I thought I was the only student who wanted to study range management so I could later have an excuse to chase cows on government time. Silly me. Even at granola-crunching, holistically groovy Humboldt State in […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Sid Goodloe
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story: Raising a ranch from the dead “Allan Savory said it best when he said we’re grass farmers and not animal ranchers. But I would say that much more emphasis has been put on breeding animals than on proper care of the range. Ranchers are […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
For further reading
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story: Raising a ranch from the dead Fire in America: A Cultural History of Wildland and Rural Fire, by Stephen J. Pyne, Princeton University Press, 1982. World Fire, by Stephen J. Pyne, Holt and Co., 1995 New Mexico Vegetation: Past, Present and Future, William A. […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Wild Wyoming under siege
Sporting and conservation organizations will gather in Rock Springs, Wyo., April 26-28, to discuss the increasing conflict between oil and gas development and Wyoming’s clean air and wildlife. Many residents are alarmed by industry predictions that natural gas production will boom in the next 20 years, says the nonprofit Wyoming Outdoor Council, organizers of Red […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Zookeeper helps a battered range
No one did backflips when a federal judge ruled in January that the Forest Service’s environmental analysis of a grazing allotment on Arizona’s Tonto National Forest was inadequate. After all, it was a procedural victory and might not protect even one blade of grass. But for Michael Seidman, the decision was a hard-earned victory. It […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
80,000 tons of nuclear waste may head for Nevada
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Thousands of casks of highly radioactive nuclear waste would begin crossing the West by rail and truck as early as 1998 under a proposal that recently gained preliminary approval. The proposal hasn’t yet hit the floor of the House or Senate. But the Senate Energy Committee, in a 12-6 vote, approved creating […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
EPA tells Colorado to get tough on mine
The EPA told Colorado to tighten its regulations for an open-pit gold mine near Victor or risk having the EPA take over the process. Three years ago, the state turned to the federal agency to clean up the disastrous Summitville mining site in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains when the owners declared bankruptcy and left behind […]