That’s what a sheepherder lives with, 365 days a year. The life requires a special kind of person, and there are fewer of them around. The sheep industry, too, is best by special problems.
The Magazine
April 4, 1980: Debate roils over Utah’s troubled waters
Proponents and critics jostle over the Central Utah Project, which would bring water from Utah’s Bonneville Basin to the bustling Wasatch Front.
March 21, 1980: The grizzly: How many? Where? For how long?
The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, a group of game experts from state and federal agencies, may determine the future of the grizzly.
March 7, 1980: How many coal bucks should a smart state lasso?
States apply a variety of severance taxes to non-renewable resources such as coal, defying efforts to create a unified, national approach.
February 22, 1980: Tailings, pollution haunt uranium company town
Uravan, Colorado, wholly owned by the metals division of Union Carbide, faces serious pollution problems caused by operation one of the oldest uranium mills in America.
February 8, 1980: High heating costs fire up consumers in Rockies
Rising fuels costs mean higher heating bills for homeowners and businesses, with no relief in sight.
January 25, 1980: Study of radioactive homes ‘lost’ for eight years
A study, initiated by the Environmental Protection Agency but never released to the public, documents high radioactivity in more than a hundred communities where uranium tailings were used as construction fill material.
January 11, 1980: New kind of ‘public interest’ group pushes growth
Although Denver-based Mountain States Legal Foundation describes itself as a public interest legal group, it advocates for private property rights and free enterprise.
December 28, 1979: Fending off nature’s bill collector with planning
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood stewardship — understood the significance of an America overgrazed, overfarmed and carelessly logged.
December 14, 1979: Canny CERT gets respect, money, problems
Despite its problems and dissidents, the Council of Energy Resource Tribes — comprising 25 tribes who own one-third of the low sulfur coal west of the Mississippi and as much as half the privately owned uranium in the country — is emerging as a serious player in the energy development game.
November 30, 1979: Agency’s wilderness grazing policies ‘too pure’
Some conservationists trying to increase the amount of designated wilderness object to the regulations that the Wilderness Act places on grazing because those regulations draw opposition from ranchers.
November 16, 1979: New coalition inspired by FARM conference
The future of agriculture in the Rocky Mountain states may hinge on a trade-off with energy development spurred by the energy crisis.
November 2, 1979: Wildlife and livestock face off in refuge battle
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management are cutting back on grazing permits in Montana’s Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, angering ranchers.
October 19, 1979: Sizing up a new fuel that may be coming soon to a pump near you
In what appears to be an about-face, the U.S. departments of energy and agriculture and several major oil companies are beginning to embrace that notion that alcohol production can play a role in solving the country’s energy problems.
October 5, 1979: Quiet Stillwater disturbed by platinum plant
As mining companies sniff around a huge platinum deposit along Montana’s Beartooth Mountain front, locals and state wildlife officials are wondering whether the ranching, hunting, fishing and scenery will be displaced by tunnels, roads and smelters.
September 21, 1979: Northern Tier oil pipe likely to go if dollars flow
The 1,500-mile Northern Tier pipeline, which would transport Alaskan crude oil from Port Angeles, Wash. to Clearbrook, Minn., is expected to be approved by Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus and President Carter.
September 7, 1979: Boulder smolders as growth struggle continues
Although Boulder, Colorado’s growth-limiting ordinance passed nearly three years ago, there has been no cooling of the controversy about its philosophy and consequences.
August 10, 1979: Uranium industry’s expansion prospects bleak
The Three Mile Island nuclear accident has only added to the uranium industry’s troubles, which include the erratic price of uranium and pending political decisions.
July 27, 1979: Wilderness Society fires key Utah environmentalist
Utah environmentalists are up in arms over the closing of the Utah office of The Wilderness Society and the firing of field representative Dick Carter.
July 13, 1979: The latest plan for the Clark Fork: preservation
The Clark Fork of the Yellowstone in northwestern Wyoming has inspired plans for railroads, highways and dams, but the most recent proposal is to designate 22 miles of the river’s rugged canyon as Wild and Scenic.
