You can unplug from the electrical grid, writes home-builder and author Michael Potts in The Independent Home: Living Well with Power from the Sun, Wind and Water. Potts’ exploration of both the philosophy and technology of energy independence makes an excellent primer for people wanting to design and build a house, or to minimize power […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Don’t try to improve grazing; abolish it!
My greatest fear about grazing reform is that it will substitute for substantive reform. The grazing fee will increase from one-quarter to one-half of fair market value, but government will kick back even that increase to those ranchers who talk the range reform talk. The increased fee will go to range developments to mitigate livestock […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Grazing combatants vow to keep feuding
The day after he didn’t get appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt dove back into grazing reform. At a U.S. Senate hearing in Albuquerque, N.M., on May 14, Babbitt told several hundred ranchers and environmentalists that he expects to “stay in the middle of this grazing issue until we work out […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Low-tech ants give a high-tech Idaho lab fits
It’s nature’s equivalent of David versus Goliath. In this instance David happens to be 7 mm long and Goliath is the U.S. Department of Energy and the scientific community. Their battleground is the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) in southern Idaho where harvester ants are stymieing waste disposal efforts by doing what ants do best […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Power plant disappears
Was it a hoax? Nine months after residents of Show Low, Ariz., fervently debated a proposal to build a 900-megawatt nuclear power plant in the nearby White Mountains, the proposal is dead. “It all just went away,” Show Low City Manager Patrick Sherman told the Arizona Republic. Last June, Phil Downing, then executive director of […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Going to pot
Farmers in Maricopa County, Ariz., may harvest an unexpected crop this summer. Thanks to an unknown culprit who dumped more than a ton of freshly harvested marijuana into an irrigation canal, millions of seeds could find their way onto cotton farms. Steve Werner of the county sheriff’s office said 1,500 pounds of pot were retrieved […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Wind in the West
New wind turbines that produce electricity almost as cheaply as new coal- or natural gas-fired plants have spurred four wind power projects in the West. San Francisco-based Kenetech, the nation’s largest developer of wind energy, proposes three projects featuring turbines that adjust to wind speeds while still creating energy at a uniform rate. Two of […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
All eyes on cows
Every Bureau of Land Management district in the West will hold simultaneous public hearings June 8 on Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s Rangeland Reform “94 proposal. Most hearings will start with a workshop to explain the new grazing plan, then open for public testimony. The BLM wants to hear comments on two documents: proposed grazing regulations […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Babbitt attacks mining’s gold heists
On the day he was not nominated to the Supreme Court, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt stepped up his campaign for reform of public-land laws in the West. Brandishing an oversized symbolic check, Babbitt bashed the “outdated” 1872 Mining Law that forced him to hand over more than $10 billion in gold to a Canada-based company […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Can a copper firm restore a blasted ecosystem?
Introductory editor’s note: Wherever we look in the developed West, we see evidence of misuse: eroding streams, stripped forests, species such as the grizzly hanging on by their claws. Many believe it is not enough to simply stop the damage. We must also put the West back together. But many in the West are in […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
The labyrinthine nature of mine waste regulations
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Can a copper firm restore a blasted ecosystem? While Kennecott grapples with a real mess of contamination on the ground and in the water around Bingham Canyon, it also finds itself entangled in a long-running debate about regulating mine wastes. The mining industry has successfully […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
A bright idea
When the lights start to dim or the TV won’t turn on, some Navajos in Arizona know it’s time to drive to a gas station and recharge the car battery. For the 10,000 people who live out of range of the tribal utility’s powerlines, car batteries provide a quick, though inconvenient, source of energy. But […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
BLM OKs drilling near cave, sort of
The Bureau of Land Management will allow a New Mexico company to drill for gas on federal land near Lechuguilla Cave, the deepest cave in the United States and part of Carlsbad Caverns National Park (HCN, 2/22/93). But Yates Petroleum says the strict criteria the agency established for the leases make it economically infeasible to […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
A one-man Sagebrush Rebellion
A Nevada rancher refuses to pay more than $25,000 in fines to the BLM.
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
Lawsuit is launched against grazing in Montana
A legal attack against public-lands ranching is under way in Montana. The National Wildlife Federation and its Montana affiliate filed suit March 30 against the Forest Service, Beaverhead National Forest Supervisor Bert Kulesza and Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas in federal District Court in Butte, Mont. Tom France, National Wildlife Federation attorney in Missoula, […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Consensus on tape
The consensus approach to public-land grazing is like ecosystem management: a largely undefined process. To ground matters, Oregon State University has produced a 29-minute video titled, “The Miracle at Bridge Creek.” It examines how the Oregon Watershed Improvement Coalition brought together the various players on public-land grazing to improve several Oregon watersheds. The video is […]
Posted inApril 4, 1994: Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau?
Scratching for a living
Dan Popkey, a columnist with the Idaho Statesman, noted irony in the Idaho State Land Board’s decision to overturn a grazing lease won at an auction by an environmental group. The board returned the lease to the Ingrams, a ranching family from Challis, Idaho, after hearing the ranchers’ emotional plea to protect family agriculture in […]
Posted inApril 4, 1994: Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau?
Energy Fair
Alternative energy technologies will be on display at the second annual, free Energy Fair April 30-May 1 in Montrose, Colo. Vendors will feature tepees, dome houses, earth-sunken homes, devices to computerize energy conservation and energy-efficient lighting and building materials. Workshops will examine bio fuels and hybrid solar systems, among other topics. Events include baking cookies […]
Posted inApril 4, 1994: Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau?
Rural co-ops must change
Under a draft proposal by the Western Area Power Administration, over 600 publically owned utilities and rural electric associations must add renewable resources and energy efficiency to their planning procedures or forfeit their right to buy cheap federal hydropower. WAPA’s Draft Energy Planning and Marketing EIS, released March 25, would require all utilities that buy […]
Posted inApril 4, 1994: Who speaks for the Colorado Plateau?
Grazing reform: A plan to chew on
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt launched his second attempt at grazing reform last month, issuing a giant 224-page draft plan to revamp grazing practices on 170 million acres of Bureau of Land Management rangeland. Like his initial proposal last summer, the revised plan would double grazing fees and tighten environmental regulations. But, in a major departure, […]