Western agriculture is a risky business. Even if crops survive the frequent summer droughts, their soil can be washed away by fast and furious monsoon rains. Brook LeVan, co-director of the nonprofit Sustainable Settings in Aspen, Colo., wants to help farmers avoid this annual double jeopardy. This summer, with the help of two teachers and […]
Catherine Lutz
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Missing: One truckload of fuel
COLORADO After a six-month search, more than 7,000 gallons of diesel fuel are still missing from a Summit County ski resort. In January, when the fuel was delivered to Copper Mountain, the driver reportedly pumped it into a water-quality monitoring well instead of an underground storage tank. Although officials were able to recover 150 gallons […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Hot Property: A former nuclear bomb factory gets caught in suburban turf wars
ROCKY FLATS, Colo. – When Charlie McKay’s uncle, Marcus Church, was forced to sell 1,250 acres of ranchland to the U.S. government for a top-secret military facility, the deal was sweetened only by the promise of a development boom. The year was 1951, and Denver, which sat 17 miles away, had a population of a […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Expansion faces restrictions
COLORADO Telski, the ski resort in southern Colorado’s Telluride, is expanding onto national forest lands now that a lawsuit brought by two locals and two environmental groups has been settled (HCN, 8/4/97: A do-over in Telluride). In an out-of-court agreement, Telski owner, Telluride Ski & Golf Co., was authorized to add 733 acres, nearly doubling […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Stirrings in the San Rafael Swell
A recreation explosion forces some action in Utah’s deadlocked wilderness debate
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Crater doesn’t come cheap
ARIZONA Conservationists are close to protecting a volcanic crater and wetland near Flagstaff, Ariz. All they have to do is raise $3 million. In March, the Flagstaff-based Grand Canyon Trust signed a land-swap deal with developers, in which the trust bought the 247-acre caldera known as Dry Lake. Developer Jim Mehen, who had first proposed […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Western weather waffles
The Northwest looks at a soggy summer, while the Southwest may just burn
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Fish find friends in farmers
WASHINGTON Protecting threatened salmon in the Northwest has become everybody’s business, with Washington’s farmers the newest group to enter the fray. Now, farmers are under the gun: In the next 18 months, they must make sure their standards are compatible with habitat conservation guidelines published by federal agencies overseeing salmon recovery. If farmers are not […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
SUWA goes national
From redrock canyons to sagebrush prairies, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers 177 million acres in the lower 48 states. About 5 million acres – or 3 percent – are currently protected as wilderness. The National BLM Wilderness Campaign, a new project of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), is lobbying the administration to […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Backpacks and quacks
Sporting highly sophisticated “backpacks’ that are really 20-gram satellite transmitters, 50 female pintail ducks are flying north from the Central Valley in California this spring. The ducks are the focus of Discovery for Recovery, a four-year study by Ducks Unlimited, the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Waterfowl Association. Its object is determining pintail migration […]
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
A letter fans the flames
NEVADA When Humboldt-Toiyabe Forest Supervisor Gloria Flora resigned last November, she said local hostility toward federal employees was a major reason for stepping down (HCN, 11/22/99: Nevadans drive out forest supervisor). Now, a letter has surfaced from a county official that supports her words. In a Dec. 30, 1998, letter to public land-use advisor Gene […]
Posted inMarch 27, 2000: The last wild river
What’s in your organic burrito?
Ever wonder what makes an organically labeled food organic? Soon, you’ll know. The Department of Agriculture recently released its proposed national organic standards for comment on the federal register. The 146-page document includes a list of substances approved and prohibited in organic foods. The agency’s first attempt at setting organic regulations, which allowed genetically engineered […]
Posted inMarch 27, 2000: The last wild river
Greens call snowmaking a snow job
COLORADO The Forest Service has given Arapahoe Basin Ski Area the green light to imitate nature and make snow. In 1998, A-Basin, the only major resort in Colorado that doesn’t make artificial snow, submitted a plan to divert water from the North Fork of the Snake River. Snowmaking would allow the ski area to compete […]
Posted inMarch 27, 2000: The last wild river
Guides may get guidelines
NATION Close to 4,000 outfitters ply their trades in national forests, bringing in nearly $4 million annually to the Forest Service. With recreation booming on public lands, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has introduced a bill that standardizes outfitter operations in areas administered by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Craig’s Outfitters Policy Act […]
Posted inMarch 27, 2000: The last wild river
Oh, give me a home…
Contrasting Western images: A lone cowboy on horseback rides through the recently paved streets of a new, cheerily painted subdivision, while a voice laments that the West is becoming a place an old-timer might not recognize anymore. That’s how the documentary, Subdivide and Conquer: A Modern Western, begins. It takes a sobering look at the […]
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
A new town hits the skids
Residents say no to development
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
Drain it now, says organization
Glen Canyon Action Network, an advocacy group that wants to drain Lake Powell, will hold its Restoration Celebration and Rendezvous at Glen Canyon Dam on March 14. The event, which coincides with the International Day of Action Against Dams and the anniversary of author Edward Abbey’s death, “will be a celebration, not a protest,” says […]
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
Bovine boondoggle
Cows eat up more than just grass in the West, says a special investigative report by the San Jose Mercury News. According to “Cash Cows: The Giveaway of the West,” federal-lands grazing consumes tax dollars without giving much back. Published in November and now available in eight-page color reprints, the report was compiled by 10 […]
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
Goose eggs in Congress
According to the League of Conservation Voters’ 1999 National Environmental Scorecard, over one-third of senators received a zero percent score. Western delegates cast their votes against the environment more often than their counterparts from other regions. Eleven Western senators earned a big zilch, including the entire delegations of Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. Of those, […]
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
Saving the environment saves money
A coalition of 27 environmental, taxpayer and budget-watchdog groups has produced its sixth annual report, Green Scissors 2000, which cites 77 wasteful government programs that harm the environment and cost taxpayers $50 billion. The 26-page report targets programs such as timber and irrigation subsidies and predator control projects, detailing their cost to the taxpayer and […]