Nevada’s attorney general recently upheld a 1995 state law that took away the Bureau of Land Management’s right to hold stock-water rights. The state said the privilege belonged solely to ranchers. Since the agency doesn’t own cattle, said the attorney general, it can’t put a stock-water right to beneficial use. “Water’s a special resource,” explained […]
Water
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Trade treaty may protect Arizona river
The U.S. government must respond this month to a citizens’ petition accusing one of its Army bases of helping to dry up Arizona’s last free-flowing river, the San Pedro (HCN, 6/12/95). The river boasts North America’s largest surviving expanse of cottonwood and willow forest and serves as a migratory coridor for many birds. The petition […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
A-LP makes a hit list
Colorado’s Animas-La Plata project, the controversial water development plan entangling two rivers, two tribes, and nearly every politician in the state (HCN, 11/11/96), has been named one of a dozen “corporate welfare” schemes on a Washington hit list. The list was announced by Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, chair of the House Budget Committee. His coalition […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
Who wins when a river returns?
OWENS VALLEY, Calif. – Between the two small towns of Big Pine and Lone Pine, the Owens River flows through a desert, its banks sprinkled with saltcedar and rabbitbrush, its denizens kangaroo rats and snakes. But it wasn’t always like this. And it will change in the next decade if an appeals court approves an […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Down with dams?
Dave Wegner, the scientist who studied the Grand Canyon ecosystem for more than a decade, said he thinks Glen Canyon Dam is just one of many that could go. “I’d take out Glen Canyon. I’d take out Flaming Gorge. And I’d look at Navajo Dam on the San Juan River,” he said, while attending the […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Water deal quenches many thirsts
In a triumph of negotiation over litigation, local, state and federal officials in Utah recently ended a decade-long dispute over water near Zion National Park. By swapping two potential dam sites above the park for a new one below it, negotiators ensured water both for the national park and for local faucets. Most importantly, says […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
They’re still talking about A-LP
With four meetings down and who knows how many more to come, talks on Animas-La Plata, the $714 million dam and irrigation project proposed near Durango, Colo., continued this winter (HCN, 11/11/96). Ten options remain on the table – down from 70 – and some involve downsizing the project. Others propose alternatives to bring water […]
Posted inDecember 23, 1996: El Nuevo West
Glen Canyon team dismantled
The man who oversaw the research that led to the historic “man-made” flood in the Grand Canyon last spring has resigned. River ecologist Dave Wegner quit after Interior Department officials closed down his Glen Canyon Environmental Studies office and replaced it with a research center headed by a biologist with little experience in river management. […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Judge tells EPA to hurry up in Idaho
Conservationists won a major court ruling this fall in their two-decade-long battle with the state of Idaho and the Environmental Protection Agency to implement and enforce the Clean Water Act. In a sharply worded opinion, federal district judge William Dwyer, of northern spotted owl fame, chided the EPA and the state for failing to develop […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Roll on, Columbia
It’s easy to sum up the view of two new books on the Columbia River, the Nchi-Wana in a native tongue: It was wild, dammed, polluted and mutilated. Pulitzer Prize winner William Dietrich tells a fascinating tale in Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River as he leaves no aspect of the river untouched. Beginning with […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Sacred lands shouldn’t smell
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. In 1994, the Coeur d’Alene tribe spent $200,000 to remove 1,000 tons of lead-contaminated soil from a riverside area long used by the tribe. But when the tribe wanted to construct a levee on private land to protect the site from floods, the other […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Power is no longer everything
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt signed a historic record of decision Oct. 9 that aims to protect the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. The new rule calls for regulating flow rates from Glen Canyon Dam to minimize erosion and unnatural water-level fluctuations, and it makes Glen Canyon the first hydroelectric dam mandated to generate power […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
The rules
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Colorado Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler’s ground rules for A-LP consensus: * Don’t attack; be positive. * Work to develop a feeling of collaboration. * No legal nitpicking (nervous laughter since more than half the people at the table are lawyers). * Listen to each […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Meanwhile, on the street
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. In the negotiating room, old enemies were trying to get along. But in A-LP’s hometown of Durango, Colo., passions still run high. Jeff Morrissey, a former Durango mayor and present board member of the Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy District, was cited by police for […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
What $710 million buys
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. It’s fitting that the story of Reclamation’s last big project should also be a story about one of the West’s last free-flowing rivers. From its headwaters in the San Juan Mountains near the Continental Divide, the Animas River descends about 125 miles south through […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Stella Montoya, La Plata Conservancy District
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “My husband worked on the A-LP project all his life and was in Washington in 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the A-LP project. He chaired the conservancy district for over 30 years, and now I hold the position. “The La Plata River has […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Ray Frost, Southern Ute councilman
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “I have always been against the A-LP project, even when I was running for a seat on the tribal council three years ago. “The Southern Ute Grassroots Organization believes that the development of the Animas-La Plata project, as currently thought about, is not in […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Maggie Fox, Sierra Club
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “It’s interesting how we see history differently. Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., talked about the settlement 10 years ago as if everyone in the whole world was there. In fact, the conservation community was not there because we were expressly excluded. I think if we […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Dear reader
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. We don’t think anyone has written a book about Animas-La Plata, but we’ve come close over the years. If you want more background on A-LP, sign onto HCN’s Web site (www.hcn.org), where we’ve collected most of the paper’s A-LP articles. If you’d prefer, send […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Corporate giants slurp up a tiny town’s pure water
OLANCHA, Calif. – Crystal Geyser’s 100,000-square-foot bottling facility sticks out incongruously in this Owens Valley town of some 200 people. In the late 1980s, the company spent two years tasting water from all over the West, searching for a spot to build a new bottling plant. Crystal Geyser, one of the nation’s top sellers of […]