Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, Louise Wagenknecht’s essay on the futility of firefighting (HCN, 5/7/01: The year it rained money) confirmed my family’s observations during a nearby fire last year. We watched in horror as 250 firefighters set pointless backfires, bulldozed miles of roads, and sawed down huge, rare trees that would not have burned. We saw dozens […]

Dear HCN, As a Christmas subscriber, I have both praise and criticism for three recent articles about nuclear waste in the West. In the Dec. 18, 2000, issue, Oakley Brooks authored a short but commendable piece called “Agency gets rebuked,” in which he unearthed a rather obscure report critical of the Department of Energy’s long-term […]

Dear HCN, I don’t know how many times I’ve read or heard that the solution to the differences between environmentalists and ranchers is “cooperation.” Lovely word, cooperation. Unfortunately, it seems to mean different things to different people. To the rancher, it’s “leave us alone to do our thing.” To most environmentalists, it means reducing the […]

Dear HCN, Steve Pyne’s fine article on Ed Pulaski, and the Forest Service’s corporate culture about forest fires, is a great read (HCN, 4/23/01: The Big Blowup). But Steve, like so many others, fails to see the main point about humans vs. fires. Fires happen. It’s not our fault. The idea that finding “a Pulaski” […]

Dear HCN, I have been amused for the past 30 years each time someone takes umbrage at the use of the word squaw while making the assertion that it is a vulgar term invented by white man to demean Native American women. We did encourage and abet the destruction of the early inhabitants by means […]

Dear HCN, Ah! Political correctness … and all its ironies. When I was younger, I’d get outraged at some of this nonsense. In my grandmother’s day, to have an outlaw or American Indian blood in the family was a shame and kept secret. But attitudes change, as well as word usage. Gay. Totally different word, […]

Dear HCN, Moab residents have good reason to be concerned about development of lands managed by Utah’s State Institutional and Trust Lands Administration (SITLA). “Luxury looms over Moab” (HCN, 3/26/01: Luxury looms over Moab). According to SITLA’s Ric McBrier, “this will be a quality project.” Before buying that promise, Moab residents should view the eyesore […]

Dear HCN, I read with great interest the cover article titled “Teach the children well” in the March 26 issue of High Country News. This subject is near and dear to me, as for many years I directed the water education program for the Utah Division of Water Resources. I was troubled, though, by what […]

Dear HCN, Before the debate over corporate vs. conservation-sponsored environmental education is presented in “Teach the children well” (HCN, 3/26/01: Teach the children well), a more fundamental problem should be addressed. Environmental education is science-based (regardless of who designs the curriculum), and the driving discipline is biology. Herein lies the problem: a strong biological curriculum […]

Dear HCN, A quotation on page 8 of the March 12 issue of HCN is a beautiful example of a doctrine of priorities that needs to be re-examined. An officer of the El Paso Water Utilities is quoted as saying that “Agriculture (which uses water from the Rio Grande) brings in only $60 million a […]

Dear HCN, Although I appreciated Lisa Church’s article on “Cloudrock,” the proposed luxury resort development in Moab (HCN, 3/26/01: Luxury looms over Moab), two important pieces of the story were missed. When Church describes the developer of the proposed Cloudrock lodge as “the Salt Lake-based Moab Mesa Land Company (MMLC),” she gets both her geography […]

Dear HCN, Reading Ben Long’s story in your March 12 issue, “Yellowstone’s last stampede,” was like getting a kick in the stomach. Who are these pea-brains on their disgusting machines that they can treat the park as though it’s their own personal Disneyland? They obviously care nothing for the land or the animals who must […]

Dear HCN, Out of Edward Abbey’s novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, came the term, “eco-terrorist,” defined as an extremist who so radically loved the ecosystems that sustain the earth, that he tried to protect them by “monkeywrenching” the tools of big extractive industry — dozers, dams and draglines — thus destroying the industrial juggernaut that […]

Dear HCN, As a Sierra Club member and former resident of New Mexico, I was very impressed with the “zero cow” initiative article, for it highlights the complexity of how to both use and protect public lands (HCN, 2/26/01: ‘Zero-Cow’ initiative splits Sierra Club). In the past, when the proverbial pendulum supported loggers, miners, ranchers […]

Dear HCN, I would like to respond to Glenn Koepke’s letter, “Don’t glorify Babbitt” (HCN, 3/12/01: Don’t glorify Babbitt). Mr. Koepke presents his arguments with enviable skill, and articulates what may be the majority position in the West regarding public-lands management – that the lands exist to be utilized in traditional ways, to produce timber, […]

Dear HCN, Allen Best (“The mythic West and the billionaire,” HCN, 2/26/01: The mythic West and the billionaire) is right on target. Artists who’ve romanticized the West, often with corporate subsidies, have tended to blind us to the dark side of our history. The paintings are beautiful but isn’t art, and all the arts, supposed […]

Dear HCN, In Mike Stark’s article, “Will logging save the spotted owl” (HCN, 3/12/01: Will logging save the spotted owl?), he quotes Joe Keating, federal forest coordinator for the Sierra Club, “All in all, it’s just a very bad plan.” Later Keating expands, “The real reason (for this plan) is to have a sustainable forestry […]

Dear HCN, Megan Lardner’s story, “Divided waters” (HCN, 3/12/01: Divided waters), provoked a strong, visceral response in me. She certainly has the ability to observe and to describe what she sees. What she saw stirred my gut. To have a metropolitan border area of over 2 million persons, some of whom have to depend on […]

Dear HCN, I appreciated the Hotline pointing out that Utah is slaughtering the mascot of the SLC Olympic games (HCN, 3/12/01: State to coyote hunters: Let the games begin). Each time I see the California flag, I imagine (that’s all I can do, given limited funds) full-page ads in the L.A., San Francisco and Sacramento […]

Dear HCN, “Zero-Cow initiative splits Sierra Club” (HCN, 2/26/01: ‘Zero-Cow’ initiative splits Sierra Club) fails to recognize that the Club is neither “zero-cut” nor “zero-cud.” In its attempt to simplify it misses the real story. While the Club has a position that advocates an end to all commercial logging on public lands, private use and […]