Riding the middle path

Feature

A homegrown consensus effort called the Owyhee Initiative is trying to save both wilderness and ranching in southwestern Idaho – but in the polarized Bush era, consensus is often controversial

Editor's Note

Save the middle ground: Hug a radical

Even though it’s true that without the radical extremes, there would be no middle ground, to save wilderness in the Bush era, environmental hard-liners need to ease up on consensus deals

Dear Friends

HCN’s upcoming Holiday Open House; Toby Harshaw, John Singlaub, and Rea Orthner visit; Congratulations to Dick Carter and Deb French; and corrections and comments

Writers on the Range

Being a local doesn't make you any better

Robert Struckman confesses he's a knee jerk local who's trying to get over it

News

News flash: Fish do need water

Federal wildlife managers admit that the massive fish kill in the Klamath River in 2002 was caused, in part, by the diversion of water to farmers

$11 million is set aside for a nuclear trigger factory that Carlsbad, N.M., is hoping to host; Yucca Mountain, Nev., gets $580 million for nuclear waste storage; no extra water for the Rio Grande silvery minnow; Pentagon wins exemptions to environmental l

As Congress adjourns, the environment is left in limbo

The energy bill is stalled for now as Congress wraps up its business for the year, but a lot of anti-environmental legislation has been passed in an end-of-season rush

Utahns beat back radioactive waste

In the face of noisy opposition, Envirocare of Utah pulls its federal application to dump high-level radioactive waste in the desert

Forest protection on the honor system

The House and Senate pass the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, which environmentalists fear will do the opposite of its name

New nuke studies are in the works

Congress sets aside money for new nuclear weapons research and tells the Nevada Test Site to get ready for nuclear weapons-testing

Book Reviews

Getting high in class

Bruce Gordon started his nonprofit EcoFlight in Aspen, Colo., to take kids out of the classroom and let them see environmental issues from above, in his Cessna 210

Calendar

Gas wells wash out habitat

Environmental scientist James Gore warns that the water that coalbed methane wells pours into streams could wipe out up to 30 aquatic species in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana

American Speedster

In Built for Speed: A Year in the Life of Pronghorn, zoology professor John Byers offers a glimpse into the life of North America’s fastest mammal

Essays

A cheer for runaway bison and the Rocky Mountain Front

The Rocky Mountain Front in Montana is precious land, and it is under threat from the Bush administration’s predatory energy policy

Leaving Las Vegas

Now that she’s left Las Vegas, the writer recalls the surrealistic city, and is haunted by the memory of the desert that surrounds it

Heard Around the West

Heard around the West

Circumcised elk; grizzly bear highway deaths; recycling fraud in California; money talks at Copper Mountain; newspaper bloopers; crime waves in Cortez, Colo

High Country News December 08, 2003

Feature