I agree that tactics on both sides of the roadless issue have fouled the process and the intent of law (HCN, 11/9/09). To fully understand this matter, though, I think it’s important to go back to the RARE1 and RARE2 (Roadless Area Review) processes of the 1970s and 1980s, meant to identify potential wilderness areas […]
Letter to the editor
Posted inDecember 7, 2009: Dueling Claims
Taking the high road(less)
The political campaign that was used to accomplish the Clinton roadless rule seemed open to serious criticism on the grounds that it was intentionally insensitive to the voice of many Western constituencies that would have (and subsequently have) objected (HCN, 11/9/09). A narrowly targeted minority of activists was mobilized to win the day while most […]
Posted inDecember 7, 2009: Dueling Claims
The intolerant West
In the “Editor’s Note” in the Oct. 26 issue, Jonathan Thompson states that “many (refugees) face racism and xenophobia…” in Western cities and towns. One doesn’t need to be a refugee or from another country to face these same issues. Despite being born a U.S. citizen and having 15 years of community service in the […]
Posted inDecember 7, 2009: Dueling Claims
The unkindness of essays
As a hunter and conservationist, I found your essay “The Kindness of Hunters” insulting, naive and decidedly inappropriate for a publication trying to advance the case of conservation in the West (HCN, 11/9/09). Hunters are somewhat used to being caricatured as a bunch of bloodthirsty bubbas, but this is the first time I recall us […]
Posted inDecember 7, 2009: Dueling Claims
Forever roadless
Ray Ring’s article “Roadless-less” was misleading to suggest that the roadless rule was created with inadequate public process and without the support of the American people (HCN, 11/9/09). The roadless rule represents the most extensive public rule-making process ever undertaken by the U.S. Forest Service. During more than three years of review and public participation, […]
Posted inDecember 7, 2009: Dueling Claims
How about a nostalgic piece on hunters shooting at bagels?
I am beginning to wonder if the “Essay” section at the end of each issue shouldn’t be re-named “My goodness! As a yuppie I had no idea!” There must be more interesting topics available for essays than just gushy nostalgia for country grandmothers, bagel lovers displaced east of the Mississippi, or unprepared hikers who think […]
Posted inDecember 7, 2009: Dueling Claims
Keep it legal
While I am all for keeping roads out of our national forests to the extent practicable, I found former Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck’s view of the process disturbing (HCN, 11/9/09). Mr. Dombeck says in your story “Roadless-less” that “(t)he bottom line is that the mechanism of how we keep wild places wild is less […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Water overdrafts
To address groundwater situations such as that explored in your recent article, “Death By a Thousand Wells,” Congress must increase funding for the U.S. Geological Survey so it can conduct a comprehensive, nationwide groundwater mapping study (HCN, 10/26/09). As a nation, we are highly reliant on our groundwater. It accounts for 40 percent of our […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Well-grounded fears
While Cally Carswell’s piece might better have been titled “Death by more than a hundred thousand wells,” the issue is not the present number of wells but the potential for the future growth of this phenomenon (HCN, 10/26/09). The exempt or domestic well is increasingly being recognized as the fly in the ointment of prior […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
For the birds
In response to your article “Audubon Feathers Fly in Arizona,” I want to make it clear that at no time has Desert Rivers Audubon taken a formal position on the land-swap issues described in the article (HCN, 10/12/09). We share many of the same concerns regarding the issues as the other Audubon groups in Arizona. […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
For the love of forests
In response to Ray Ring’s article about the roadless rule, as for the money put into the effort to establish the rule, is this not the pot calling the kettle black (HCN, 11/9/09)? Is there some reason why environmentalists and the left should be too pure to use philanthropic funding and lobbying? Sadly, to my […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Roadless — for the seventh generation
“Roadless-less” attempts to portray a scandal that never existed in the roadless rule promulgation process (HCN, 11/9/09). The article depicts the series of judicial rulings upholding the roadless rule as merely party-line votes — a view that discredits the federal judiciary and wrongly suggests that the rule’s persistent vitality in the courts says nothing about […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
Poetry in Montana
HCN is a fine example of the modern writers’ ability to create mental images and to take the reader to places we have not been both in time and space. Jeremy Smith’s essay “A guide to the past — and the future” is a perfect example of prose that almost reaches to the level of […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
Public lands, public gain
I agree with Ray Ring that Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns are on to something with the idea that public lands and “resources” ought to be reserved for the public and not allowed to be a source of enrichment for private individuals (HCN, 9/14 & 9/28/09). This theme recurs throughout the “Best Idea” episodes, along […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
Put a (GMO) tiger in your tank
I read with great interest the story in the Oct. 12 edition of HCN about Monsanto’s genetically engineered beets and other crops. I think that it is time to put the kibosh on Monsanto’s chemical activities when it comes to our food products. We need to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture to declare genetically […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
A beeting
Many of the most important points about the debate over genetically modified sugar beets were either glossed over or ignored in Matt Jenkins’ story “Biotech beet-down” (HCN, 10/12/09). For example, Jenkins states that Monsanto developed Roundup Ready beets a decade ago but they were put on hold due to public outrage, implying that it was […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
“Mulroyed”?
Matt Jenkins’ article updating the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s (SNWA’s) pipeline project unfortunately promulgated some myths which SNWA has been pushing in Nevada and Utah (HCN, 10/12/09). Jenkins did hit the target when he linked the negotiations over the Nevada/Utah shared water agreement with the proposed Lake Powell pipeline to St. George. It was the […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
When cows are outlawed …
In a letter to the editor, rancher John Marble writes, “I doubt many items in the organic produce aisle are grown with as little environmental impact as our beef” (HCN, 9/14 & 9/28/09). A while back, I discovered a remarkable statistic: Making a pound of beef creates 36 times the greenhouse gas emissions that creating […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Fish stories
Regarding your story “The Most Cooked-up Catch,” I was there when the 200-mile limit was, in fact, first imposed (HCN, 8/03/09). (Editor’s note: Congress enacted the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone in 1976.) I was a freshly minted Coast Guard airman sent to Kodiak, Alaska, in 1967 to commence fisheries enforcement for the new 200-mile limit. […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Green delusions
Audubon’s equivocations in Arizona are just the tip of the iceberg (HCN, 10/12/09). In the last decade, mainstream environmental groups have been co-opted, again and again, by wealthy entrepreneurial “benefactors.” Often these benefactors leverage their massive donations into a seat on the group’s board of directors, where policy is set. Even as human-caused climate change […]