For the fourth time in five years, the BLM’s law enforcement division has been blasted for shenanigans that were at best imprudent. An audit prepared by the Department of the Interior found that during 1991-92 the division’s 69 special agents misrepresented their case loads and misused their $27 million two-year budget. According to the report: […]
Growth & Sustainability
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
BLM: The Next Generation
Note: this is a sidebar to the news article titled “The BLM: New faces and new attitudes“ BLM: The Next Generation * Nina Hatfield, Assistant Director, Business and Fiscal Services * Maitland Sharpe, Assistant Director, Resource Assessment and Planning * Hord Tipton, Assistant Director, Resource Use and Protection ALASKA Tom Allen, state director Sally Wisely, […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
The BLM: New faces and new attitudes
A new generation has ascended to top leadership posts at the Bureau of Land Management. In the last eight months, acting BLM Director Mike Dombeck has filled 17 key positions, appointing three assistant directors, eight state directors and six associate state directors. Six appointees are women, two are minorities, and two have never before worked […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Enviros sue state land board
Better – but not good enough – says a coalition of Oregon environmentalists that is suing the state land board to institute “truly competitive bidding” for leases on state-owned land. In a break from tradition across the West, the board in July opened the bidding process so that conservationists could compete with ranchers for leases […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Ranchers blamed for transfer of BLM veteran
A 31-year Bureau of Land Management veteran says the agency is transferring him from Wyoming to Utah because of his by-the-book stand on grazing. Darrel Short, area manager for Wyoming’s Kemmerer Resource Area, says the agency kowtowed to rancher pressure in issuing the transfer, and he is challenging the move under the federal law protecting […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
No new roads
New rules proposed by the Interior Department limit the ability of states and counties to build highways across public lands. The rules clarify Revised Statute 2477, an 1866 law that granted rights-of-way on federal lands (HCN, 3/21/94). The law was repealed 18 years ago but it did not nullify any earlier rights-of-way. Since then, some […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
City Slickers should leave wilderness rough
MOAB, Utah – A Hollywood production company has been slow to restore land damaged during the filming of a stampede scene in City Slickers II. Federal land manager Brad Palmer said the movie crews trampled about 30 percent more acreage than they were supposed to in an area above the Colorado River, just off the […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
‘Unranchers’ reach for West’s state lands
Well aware of the irony, conservationists in the West are gearing up for a land grab they can call their own. They’re reaching for what have been the most obscure public – or at least semipublic – lands of all. The definition itself is up for grabs. There are about 40 million such acres, or […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Utah kids benefit from state land reform
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, ‘Unranchers’ reach for West’s state lands. Inevitably, any disagreement over state-owned lands raises the spectre of schoolchildren in need. In Utah, where spending per pupil ranks lowest in the nation, that dismal statistic has spurred reform. State lands have never generated fat revenues for […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Millions for furniture
Between 1990 and 1992, the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon spent $5.4 million intended for reforestation on staff salaries, new furniture and remodeling buildings, a federal audit reports. Eventually, this misallocation could cost taxpayers up to $200 million from lost timber harvests. The 21-page report also found that since 1990 the Oregon BLM has […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
A spinning door
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Dan Beard isn’t happy with former agency colleague Joe Hall. Eight months after resigning as the number two official at the bureau, Hall was hired as a $95-per-hour consultant by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, reports The Denver Post. According to federal ethics law, former top officials must abstain from […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
South Pass reconsidered
A Wyoming environmental group has been successful in getting the Bureau of Land Management to reconsider the route of a natural gas pipeline over historic South Pass. Following a tour of the area last year, the Wyoming Outdoor Council convinced former BLM chief Jim Baca to reconsider the route. Council founder Tom Bell and other […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
A leaking public lands fund
The Clinton administration recently proposed spending $254 million of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The amount – less than anything proposed by the Bush administration – shocked some environmentalists. They hoped Clinton would tap more of the $900 million that flows each year into the fund, primarily from offshore oil drilling royalties. Environmentalists calculate […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
RS 2477: A loophole for vandals
For years, Utah’s Arch Canyon was closed to motorized vehicles to protect sensitive riparian and natural values. But when off-road vehicle users began promoting the canyon as a travel route for their annual jeep safari, the Bureau of Land Management opened the canyon to vehicle use. Now, vehicles crush streamside vegetation, send fragile soils downstream […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
Lake Tahoe, Nevada – Fifteen months after taking over at Interior, and a few months after suffering demoralizing defeats in the U.S. Senate and among his environmental supporters, a confident, energetic Bruce Babbitt came to Lake Tahoe to put his stamp on the Bureau of Land Management. The occasion was the first-ever BLM Summit: a […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 1994: Draining the budget to desalt the Colorado
Wise-use ordinances suffer legal setback
In a decision that environmentalists hope will reverberate throughout the West, an Idaho district judge ruled that a county wise-use law is unconstitutional. Judge James Michaud said Jan. 28 that Boundary County’s land-use plan asserting local control over all decisions affecting federal and state lands in the county violates both the Idaho and U.S. constitutions […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Baca at the barricades
A movement is under way within the Clinton administration to remove Jim Baca as director of the Bureau of Land Management. Baca has had a difficult year, butting heads with ranchers and miners over federal land reforms and with Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus over a proposed bombing range (HCN, 1/24/94). On Jan. 27, top officials […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
BLM union comes to Moab
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Turmoil on the range. MOAB, Utah – Citing frustration with their agency’s treatment of natural resources and employees, Bureau of Land Management staffers in two agency offices here voted to unionize. In response, Moab District BLM managers filed an objection to the […]
Posted inDecember 13, 1993: Jack Ward Thomas: Hail to the chief
J’accuse in Oregon
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline J’accuse in Oregon.
Posted inDecember 13, 1993: Jack Ward Thomas: Hail to the chief
The return of Tom Horn?
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The return of Tom Horn?.