Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, Finally, the press has opened the glossy wrapper on the Quincy package and peeked inside. Your article, “The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace” (HCN, 9/29/97), exposed some of the problems with the Quincy Library Group legislation pending in the Senate (S. 1028). While we are eager to see people […]

Dear HCN, Regarding the Quincy Library Group’s involvement in the management of national forests, the American national forests belong to all Americans, and the opinions of those who live in or near a national forest should have no more influence than that of any other American (HCN, 9/29/97). Maybe things need to be left alone. […]

Dear HCN, The recent article (HCN, 9/29/97) on the Quincy Library Group bill (S.1028) once again implies that this is a divisive issue caused by friction between the national environmental groups and the grass roots. That’s just not accurate. The vast majority of the environmental community is opposed to S.1028. Rather than dividing, this legislation […]

Dear HCN, Thanks for the meaningful comparison of land areas in the Quincy Library Group article (HCN, 10/13/97). I am tired of HCN writers’ comparisons of land areas in the West to small states in the East. They only serve to remind us that there are some dinky states which are similar in size to […]

Dear HCN, Michael Reynolds, the Taos, N.M., acclaimed visionary of the concept of using discarded tires and aluminum cans to create environmentally responsible homes called Earthships (HCN, 9/1/97), may be sailing a sinking ship. And he may be taking naive people with him. I moved from the East Coast three years ago and signed an […]

Dear HCN, There is something fundamentally wrong when citizens are required to pay a fee to walk on land they already own (HCN, 10/13/97). Whatever happened to the concept of public domain? The bureaucrats have taken the easy low road by going after recreational users instead of doing the right thing and lobbying politicians and […]

Dear HCN, One thing you failed to mention in your feature article on user fees was the Park Service’s perpetual con game about being short of money (HCN, 10/13/97). To get their point across, they defer road maintenance and close campgrounds, items highly visible to the public. What the public does not see is any […]

Dear HCN, I am writing in response to your article, “A Colorado reality check: lions roam and kill” (HCN, 8/4/97). The article draws attention to two mountain lion attacks that took place during July in Colorado. While everyone would agree these attacks are tragic, your story, and the rather melodramatic headline, draws too much attention […]

Dear HCN, Heather McGregor’s article on the proposed sale of the Collbran reclamation project does a good job of making a complex dispute understandable (HCN, 9/15/97). Nonetheless, there are a couple of points in the article I need to address. I represent a dozen western Colorado, regional and national environmental groups, as well as the […]

Dear HCN, Montana Sen. Conrad Burns and ecologist Richard Keigley seem to share a common discontent: Both criticize land-management policy in Yellowstone National Park (HCN, 9/15/97). Burns recently chastised Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt for park policy that let bison die in the park last winter. Burns said the deaths were proof that “natural regulation” is […]

Dear HCN, Thank you for an outstanding Yellowstone issue (HCN, 9/15/97). Ecologist Charles Kay’s opinion alone was worth the price of a year’s subscription. I’m an ex-park ranger with years of sad experience with the fundamentalism that has taken over the environmental movement. Kay is justified in stating that “Environmentalists believe that North America was […]

Dear HCN, The Great Plains Restorative Council seems to have a worthy goal of letting the bison go free, but I’ve got some questions for letter-writer J. Manos (HCN, 9/15/97). To what degree is his organization influenced by political correctness? How will the farmers be compensated for the loss of their land? When herds of […]

Dear HCN, I read with great interest your article about alternative housing, “Earthships’ in Taos County, N.M. (HCN, 9/1/97). The builder asserts he is not creating a subdivision because he is not selling parcels of land and so he refuses to abide by state and county subdivision laws. Hogwash. This developer is circumventing important laws […]

Dear HCN, Columnist Jon Margolis concludes that designation of the new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was not a “model of cooperative federalism. Consultation with the state was non-existent, …” ” (HCN, 9/1/97). If President Clinton had consulted with the state before issuing his proclamation, he would have run up against a monolithic stonewall of resistance […]

Dear HCN, One of the few things Greg Hanscom got right in his article on Yellowstone’s Northern Range (HCN, 9/15/97) is that politics is running the show, and that “range managers, wise-users and Republican lawmakers are all ears’ for any criticism of natural regulation. Unfortunately, he fell into the critics’ trap and declared them the […]

Dear HCN, Scott Stouder’s article about extending a road on the rim of Hells Canyon brought back memories (HCN, 4/14/97). I guided river trips in Hells Canyon, backpacked through the Oregon-side wilderness areas, and taught school in Halfway, Ore., in the early “70s. His article illustrated the continuous assault on wilderness values throughout the West […]

Dear HCN, A little comment about your story on the sacred and profane colliding in the West (HCN, 5/26/97). I’m old enough to remember that when the Bureau of Reclamation was promoting Glen Canyon Dam and the resulting reservoir, which it called the “Jewel of the Colorado,” the Bureau strongly argued that now, people would […]

Dear HCN, I find the tone of Stephen Lyons’ essay, “How the writer learned he is not very spiritual,” offensive due to its cynicism (HCN, 8/18/97). Apparently all the writer did was look on the surface of things. He gives no indication of having tried to talk with a local person involved in healing or […]

Dear HCN, Thank you for publishing Dan Flores’ well-written cover essay, “The West that was, and the West that can be” (HCN, 8/18/97). But I must protest one huge glaring error: Mr. Flores says there are only 250,000 bison left, down from multiple millions. Wrong! There is not one bison truly alive today. Every single […]

Dear HCN, As one of the founders and the current president of The Wildlands Project, I must respond to your article, “Foreman finds hope amid ecological rubble” (HCN, 8/4/97). At the end of the article you comment that Dave failed to describe how our reserve designs were to be implemented. You also asked about the […]