Here in Oregon, the dinosaurs are stirring. The brontosaurs of big timber, almost at their last gasp, are making one last power play, and it’s a WOPR, pronounced — how else? — “whopper,” which stands for Western Oregon Plan Revisions. What’s being revised are management plans for six Bureau of Land Management districts in western […]
Essays
Posted inWotr
A mining town gets a second chance
Historically, the mining industry has not given its towns a second chance. When ore runs out or metal prices head south, as both always do, the industry waves good-bye and leaves mining towns to confront their fates alone. They can either join the West’s long list of ghost towns, or figure out some way to […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t top that tree!
One day several years ago, when the youngest was 5 and her sister 8, the youngest brought home from kindergarten a watercolor she had painted of a tree. Painted on 9-by-18-inch paper, the tree’s shallow crown stretched the 18-inch width of the paper and off both edges. My wife and I of course praised the […]
Posted inWotr
Slow down, you go too fast
These are difficult times for people like me. I love to drive. Nothing soothes me more than a long, empty stretch of road and a full tank of gas and no known destination. I love the rumble of the road, spotting a café in a town, stopping for pie and coffee and listening to locals […]
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Health is a casualty on the fast track to gas drilling
The 20 miles of interstate highway between the small towns of Silt and Parachute in western Colorado slice through a landscape of sagebrush and mesas. There are few exits through this section of Garfield County, where the local population of deer and elk rivals the number of ranchers, retirees and others who live here. Susan […]
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Truth really is no defense
On, May 30, Justice Samuel Alito cast his first deciding vote, and in doing so struck a blow for muzzling public servants at all levels of government. The 5-4 majority in Garcetti v. Ceballos held that public servants have no First Amendment rights in their role as government employees. This decision makes it easier to […]
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Down on the ground looking for culture
The topic for the Gunnison, Colo., master-plan meeting not long ago was “community culture,” and the rambles of that discussion have been lurking in my mind ever since. The talk went fast to complaints about a really junky property on the west approach to town, a collection of shacks and sheds with stuff lying around. […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Fishing ban will make us forget salmon
When the Bush administration originally announced its intent to ban ocean fishing of chinook salmon along 700 miles of southern Oregon and Northern California coastline, many people in my hometown sneered their approval (HCN, 3/6/06: Fishermen blamed for salmon troubles). With the exception of a brief, limited and most probably token fishing season last summer, […]
Posted inJune 12, 2006: The Perpetual Growth Machine
Empty pods and pleasant graveyards
Back in the 1960s, when I was a Los Angeles kid, LAX airport planned a big remodel. Regional bigwigs envisioned a futuristic structure of some kind, so the architects went on a Jetsons jag and suspended a gleaming streamlined pod on two sweeping steel parabolas. It would be the theme building for the whole airport, […]
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Fencing off Mexico is an ecological blunder
Medical doctors have their Hippocratic oath in which they pledge to heal the sick to the best of their ability and do no harm. We ecologists have our own guiding principle: Call it the Leopold oath. The late Aldo Leopold, who worked for the U.S. Forest Service and is considered to be one of the […]
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Rhubarb is the season’s gift to us
Are you enjoying rhubarb season? When the robin nests in the cherry tree and thunderclouds tease us by gathering every afternoon, rhubarb is ready. I’m weeding among leaves of rhubarb the size of TV trays when a woman stops jogging by and asks, “What’s that plant?” “Rhubarb,” I tell her; our grandmothers called it “pie […]
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Sometimes, it’s possible to be too much in touch
As a general rule, it is not a good idea to smack a fellow river rafter with a paddle or to push him out of the boat in the middle of a rapid. Not only do such actions constitute a breach of wilderness etiquette, they can cause hard feelings that might result in unpleasantness later […]
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Commemorating the Vietnam War in northern New Mexico
This Memorial Day weekend, the population of northern New Mexico will swell by thousands of people. Many will come for more than the magnificent vistas of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and perfect weather. They visit because the area is home to the first-ever Vietnam Veterans Memorial, built back in 1971, when the war was […]
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Shooting at hikers is perfectly legal
My family and I almost became collateral damage at the end of a pleasant hike through Colorado’s Roosevelt National Forest. We were walking on a trail north of the small town of Lyons, when bullets suddenly peppered the trees behind our backs. My 8-year-old son, in tears, flattened himself into the dirt, and though my […]
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Killing cougars is the easy choice
The state of Oregon is back in the business of killing cougars. After a long and contentious public comment process, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission recently approved a management plan for the state’s top predator that would allow government-paid hunters to reduce cougar numbers back to 1993 levels. That could ultimately mean the killing […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Dust and Snow
High in the snowy San Juan Mountains, tiny particles have big implications
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Science vs. science fiction — get it straight
Science and scientists are taking quite a beating in the public opinion department these days. Sometimes there’s a good reason for it. Consider the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Every year, the geologists’ association honors someone “for notable journalistic achievement in communications contributing to public understanding of geology.” The oil geologists gave Michael Crichton their […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Between the body and the world
I had to see it. I mean, how often are human bodies impregnated with resin and polyester, contorted into odd postures, and displayed for the public’s edification? It wasn’t appealing; it was irresistible. So one evening this spring, I plunked down $15 and joined the line for Body Worlds 2 at the Denver Museum of […]
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A silent victim of illegal immigration is our public lands
Just three miles north of Arizona’s border with Mexico, the Coronado National Forest is littered with the leavings of people on the run: empty plastic water bottles, opened tuna fish cans, sweatshirts, jars of foot powder. Near a scattered pack of playing cards, some turquoise underwear lies in an undignified tangle. A pair of small […]
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Raising Bella in springtime
Spring can be a time of quirky deception in the Rocky Mountains. All manner of creatures are born into this seasonal maelstrom, where soothing sunshine one moment can give way almost instantaneously to a howling snow squall. I pity the frail calves and lambs born wet on the High Plains. They trudge dutifully behind their […]