When Congress reconvenes after Labor Day, the House is expected to mark up a new bill that could allow states and counties to bulldoze roads across national parks and wilderness areas. The legislation, introduced July 20 by Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, attempts to preserve rural rights-of-way that might not be recognized under recently proposed Interior […]
Growth & Sustainability
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
How the BLM killed a cow to save a canyon and stop the paperwork
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook. For 10 or more years she was an orphan trapped in a wilderness prison with no means of escape. Finally, she was spotted and a rescue launched. Within sight of freedom, she was killed. One bullet […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
BLM land: outstanding opportunities for crowding
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook. A year ago, Bureau of Land Management rangers in southern Utah stumbled upon a remote, never-looted Anasazi ruin. To protect the site, they decided not to publicize its existence, but agency staffers’ jaws dropped recently when […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Can BLM save the grass, and itself?
Backed into a corner by legislation that threatens its existence, the Bureau of Land Management has started punching back. The agency began an aggressive Department of Interior campaign in late June, when acting BLM director Mike Dombeck delivered hard-hitting testimony against the Livestock Grazing Act before Senate and House subcommittees. Dombeck, who has already made […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Irony piles on irony in Wyoming
JACKSON, Wyo. – Backers of a proposed private-federal land swap want to prevent development of the last huge chunk of ranchland in Wyoming’s Teton County. And they’re counting on the highest officials in the federal Interior Department to keep their plan alive. That’s an ironic twist in a state where Clinton administration officials are regularly […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Desert skin
The canyon country of southern Utah and northern Arizona – the Colorado Plateau – is something special. Something strange, marvelous, full of wonders. As far as I know there is no other region on earth much like it, or even remotely like it. Nowhere else have we had this lucky combination of vast sedimentary rock […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Will an illegal BLM study seal southern Utah’s fate?
I’m writing a book on the Colorado Plateau and it has been one of the joys of my life. The library work has been fascinating but the best research has been with a backpack and a boy. Philip, then 13, and I headed out from Boulder, Colo., for southern Utah just after his classes ended, […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
BLM stumped by squatter
Ken Medenbach, a former militia member who “seized” 10 acres of federal land in spring, is still causing headaches in central Oregon. BLM managers planned to escort Medenbach back onto federal land to retrieve his possessions and then close the case. But Medenbach, who was barred from the land by court injunction, showed up with […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
A progressive bureaucrat signs off
Daniel P. Beard, who resigns as commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation effective Sept. 1, snorted when asked the question he’d already heard dozens of times: “Why are you really resigning?” But the long-time reader of High Country News loosened up, and then talked for a half-hour, when publisher Ed Marston noted: “You’ve been one […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
A grim Wyoming hearing for BLM and greens
WORLAND, Wyo. – Colored balloons decorating the Elks Club here April 3 did little to lighten the hostile atmosphere of a public hearing on the BLM’s new plan for managing a million acres in northwest Wyoming. The area is called Grass Creek, and it takes in roughly a third of the Bighorn Basin, ranging from […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
Outdoor museum preserved for now
OUTDOOR MUSEUM PRESERVED FOR NOW Two geologists working for the Bureau of Land Management in Boise, Idaho, began documenting a treasure trove four years ago: the carved bedrock of the Big Wood River, some 12 miles north of Shoshone. Terry Maley and Peter Oberlindacher were fascinated by the complex shapes that turbulent water, beginning some […]
Posted inApril 17, 1995: The New West's servant economy
‘Marvel’ous auction in Idaho
A ranch manager coughed up the money to defeat conservationist Jon Marvel at a state-land grazing auction in Idaho Falls March 7. For the first time, Marvel and his 350-member Idaho Watersheds Project lost a bid, although every time he has won in the past the Idaho Land Board overturned his victory – handing the […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Unranchers get competitive
Unranchers get competitive When Forest Guardians leased four parcels of New Mexico state land in February, it became the first environmental group to win permits always granted to ranchers. The permits, encompassing 2,078 acres north of Santa Fe, were non-controversial because they have not been leased by ranchers for seven years, says Forest Guardian Director […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
BLM accepts eco-challenge
BLM accepts Eco-Challenge While being videotaped from a helicopter, 50 teams of five competitors each will race through the heart of southern Utah’s canyon country this April. Although 85 percent to 90 percent of the 700 comments received opposed the scheme, the Bureau of Land Management recently gave its approval, with conditions, to the Eco-Challenge […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
Are the feds land-grabbers?
Are the feds land-grabbers? According to a federal report, agencies such as the Forest Service, BLM and National Park Service manage 34 million acres more today than than they did in 1964. But that’s only if you exclude Alaska, where 112 million acres left federal control due to statehood land promises and treaties with native […]
Posted inApril 3, 1995: The Great Basin: America's wasteland seeks a new identity
The Great Basin: America’s wasteland seeks a new identity
Note: this feature article is one of several in this special issue about the Great Basin. The landscape casts a rhythmic spell in the Great Basin. You feel it driving Highway 50 across Nevada. Grinding up a steep grade to the summit. Seeing a broad valley, and more mountains, one range after another, like waves […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
R.S. 2477 detoured again
The Department of the Interior has delayed for a third time its deadline for resolving a dispute over an outdated law known as R.S. 2477. In 1866, it granted rights-of-way to rural counties for roadbuilding across public lands in the West. When it was repealed in 1976, pre-existing claims were grandfathered in, creating a flurry […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 1995: The wolves are back, big time
Race alarms public; methane project doesn’t
A much-hyped race through Utah’s canyon country has attracted record public comment – and exposed how difficult it is to get the public involved in managing public lands. “It’s frustrating,” says Dennis Willis, a recreation staffer in the Price, Utah, office of the Bureau of Land Management, which is doing an environmental assessment of the […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Bidding war shakes up Idaho grazing leases
Jonathan Marvel, the feisty head of the Idaho Watersheds Project, kicked off a flurry of conflicting bids for Idaho state grazing leases in December. Marvel forked out $1,430 to prevail as the high bidder in three auctions involving a total of 1,320 acres of state land. But the largest sums were bid in auctions that […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Delay again for R.S. 2477
In a surprise move, the Interior Department extended its comment period a third time on R.S. 2477, a law adopted in 1866 to spur colonizing of the West. R.S. 2477 granted a right-of-way to rural counties for the construction of highways on public lands (HCN, 3/21/94). When Congress repealed the law in 1976, pre-existing claims […]