Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, I read with interest Sam Hitt’s “Green Hate” opinion (HCN, 2/3/97) regarding New Mexico forests. Until he, the environmental special interests who invoke his name, the timber interests and the poor families burning nine cords of wood per year stop pointing fingers at each other, we’re doomed to this seemingly unsolvable war. As […]

Dear HCN, The report by Steve Stuebner on subdivisions in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in Idaho (HCN, 12/9/96) included one remark that requires some commentary. Stuebner said reducing cattle grazing along streams to protect salmon habitat may result in the subdivision of private ranchland, and condos are worse than cows – aren’t they? I […]

Dear HCN, I’m fed up with members of Congress who claim that the government doesn’t have the money to do right by our national lands. Steve Stuebner’s story on the threatened subdivision inside Idaho’s Sawtooth National Recreation Area is a prime example of how our elected leaders are letting us down (HCN, 12/9/96). Each year […]

Dear HCN, I want to offer what I hope people will perceive to be a constructive alternative to the controversial Animas-La Plata dam project. The solution is simple: Purchase ranches in southwest Colorado and give them to the two Ute tribes and their members (HCN, 11/11/96). Most ranches come with significant, high-priority water rights. The […]

Dear HCN: A few days ago I witnessed something that challenged my concept of the person I thought surely I was. At 46, I have lived in Montana over half my life, most of that time in the rugged area near Cooke City. I have lived the life of the “manly man.” Hunter, logger, log […]

Dear HCN, In the seven pages of your special issue “El Nuevo West” devoted to illegal immigration, I wish you’d found space for at least a few lines on the wholesale transformation of the environment and quality of life in “El Futuro West” if present record levels of both legal and illegal immigration are allowed […]

Dear HCN, We who live east of the Rockies have looked on with dismay, disbelief and, I hope, with compassion as people of the Pacific Northwest suffered devastating floods, mudslides and resultant power outages. Another billion-dollar disaster and the media blame it all on the weather (HCN, 1/20/97). The real truth must be told: Deforestation […]

Dear HCN, I want to thank Ed Marston for confirming the wise-use movement’s characterization of me as an “eco-terrorist” (HCN, 12/23/96). The mining and logging industries will get good mileage out of the idea that I am a “Robespierre” leading a “reign of terror” across the West. My book, Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies, sought […]

Ed Marston replies: Dear Professor Power, My review of your book said I absolutely agreed with you about your critique of the extractive economy. Here are some relevant quotes: “Power has done us a great service by describing the economic changes transforming the West … “It is useful and important work, delivered with passion and […]

Dear HCN, I have been riding motorcycles for 27 years, and currently my son and I have six bikes, four of them dirt bikes. Recently, Clark Collins of the Blue Ribbon Coalition was kind enough to send me a sample copy of his group’s magazine. The coalition’s aims, such as promoting responsible use of public […]

Dear HCN: I read Elizabeth Manning’s “Motorheads’ story (HCN, 12/9/96) with fatalistic mirth: I figure if people won’t let me enjoy the outdoors quietly, I might as well make some noise. It seems we live in a society driven by those who take up the most space and make the biggest mess. All the while […]

Dear HCN, ORV groups (HCN, 12/9/96) succeed mainly because they are funded by an industry that profits from increased ORV use, and because they have a one-issue focus of striving to keep and increase access to public lands. There are no one-issue groups focused on fighting them. Environmental groups all have other battles to fight. […]

Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ article on the Teaming with Wildlife initiative (HCN, 12/23/96) was ironic, coming as it did on the heels of the previous issue on the increasing political power that motorized vehicle users have developed in the West. As Margolis points out, this seems to be a benign plan, only opposed by “left-of-center” […]

Dear HCN, While we take no exception with the New Mexico State Land Department in awarding the lease for several tracts of state-owned lands to the Forest Guardians and Southwest Environmental Center (in compliance with state law), we are concerned by some of the statements made by John Horning (HCN, 11/25/96). Mr. Horning characterizes the […]

Dear HCN, Local environmental groups aren’t very well organized and the Idaho Conservation League is an example of this, said Greg Brothers in a letter to you Dec. 23. The same day High Country News arrived in our mailboxes, our office manager called Mr. Brothers to find out what had happened. No one in our […]

FOUR REASONS WHY ENVIRONMENTALISTS FAIL Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ column on voting trends in the West (HCN, 11/25/96) should be stapled to the forehead of every environmental activist in the Northern Rockies. The fact is, he’s right: People around here do tend to respond more positively to environmental issues than they do to the environmentalists […]

Dear HCN, As a Colorado urban dweller for 21 years and a Colorado resident again in my future, I feel more than qualified to respond to Ellen Miller’s essay, “Should city slickers dictate to trappers?” (HCN, 10/28/96). I was born and raised in the hellhole of the Midwest, Muscatine, Iowa, population 23,000, but apparently I […]

Dear HCN, I have a great deal of respect for Susan Zakin as a writer and, for the most part, I was quite interested in her article, “Shake-up: Greens inside the Beltway” (HCN, 11/11/96). However, I was concerned by her disparaging comments about William Cronon, and the way she frames his book, Uncommon Ground, as […]

Dear HCN, In his opinion piece on the demise of the New World Mine outside Yellowstone (HCN, 9/2/96), Rocky Barker writes: “Just as important was the fact that the grass roots led the fight. If national environmental groups had taken the lead as they did in the Northwest’s ancient forest campaign, my guess is that […]

Dear HCN, The tentative agreement that would forever end the prospect of mining gold adjacent to Yellowstone National Park will turn out to be a good deal for the West and the nation. Details of the agreement, which includes a $22.5 million company cleanup at the site and swapping $65 million in federal assets for […]