Clear-cutting and riverbank armoring have helped erode a reservation
Dan Wilcock
Posted inOctober 25, 2004: Window Shopping: Part-Time Paradise
How to deal with oil and gas development
As America’s thirst for petroleum and natural gas grows, energy companies are scouring the West for new sites to drill. Now, there’s a new guidebook and Web site, Oil and Gas at Your Door, that gives landowners a preparedness primer for the day that an oil and gas company man comes knocking. Produced by the […]
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
Trout wriggles into a sagebrush rebellion
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raised the stakes in a conflict between environmentalists and Elko County, Nev., in June, when it proposed critical habitat for the endangered bull trout along the Jarbidge River. The agency proposed designating 131 miles of streams in Idaho and Nevada as critical habitat — which sets aside land essential […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
For endangered species, survival no longer enough
For 18 years, whenever the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had to decide whether a proposed development violated the Endangered Species Act, the agency applied a basic standard: Will it affect the survival of an endangered species? From now on, that’s not good enough, two federal courts have ruled. Instead, the Fish and Wildlife Service […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Ancient archaeological secret is revealed
Over the years, rancher Waldo Wilcox had told very few people about the well-preserved Fremont Indian settlement on his land in eastern Utah’s Range Creek Canyon. The site, which includes a thousand-year-old treasure trove of pottery, arrowheads and cliff dwellings, is one of Utah’s most dramatic archaeological finds. But in the late 1990s, when Wilcox […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Mining research tool debuts on Web
A new Web site provides a comprehensive look at who owns mining claims on public lands in the West, along with a scathing analysis of the legacy of the 1872 Mining Law in 12 Western states. Produced by the Environmental Working Group, “Who Owns the West,” allows the user to scroll through regional, state and […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
National parks pinching pennies
Former Park Service employees say headquarters is hiding budget woes
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Park police chief canned for candidness
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “National parks pinching pennies.” U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers didn’t know what to expect when she reported to the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Park Service Deputy Director Don Murphy, on Dec. 5, 2003. “I had […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Lame-duck governor moves deadlocked wilderness debate
UTAH The decades-old battle over how much of Utah’s desert should be protected as wilderness took a new turn in May, when Gov. Olene Walker, R, announced county-by-county discussions to break the impasse. Utah has lagged behind other Western states in designating wilderness areas on Bureau of Land Management land: Of nearly 23 million acres […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Proposal for Lassie’s lumber mill has enviros barking
WASHINGTON A dilapidated lumber mill in the Columbia River Gorge, famous for its appearance in an 1967 TV episode of Lassie, is now the site of a controversial development proposal. Since the time when the famous collie floated down the flume to the Broughton Lumber mill, recreation — particularly windsurfing — has skyrocketed in the […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
High-stakes logging plan gets go-ahead
OREGON In June, federal land managers announced one of the largest timber sales the Northwest has ever seen. Two years ago, the Biscuit Fire torched 500,000 acres in southern Oregon and California. Now, in a final environmental impact statement, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management propose opening parts of the burned […]
Posted inJune 21, 2004: A Walk Between Worlds
Debate rages over firefighting airplanes
WEST Just as fire season arrived in the West, the federal government touched off a blaze of controversy. In May, citing safety concerns, the Interior Department and the Forest Service canceled their contracts for 33 privately owned large air tankers. The decision followed a report from the National Transportation Safety Board, which detailed three plane […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Dear Friends
New Interns Zach Smith arrived in Paonia just in time to escape the blistering summer heat of Santa Fe, N.M., where he wrote for the Santa Fe Reporter and volunteered for the Audubon Society, teaching elementary school kids the basics of geology and birding. A Denver native who has lived in six states and studied […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
A bear book that tames the fear factor
“Wyoming is bear country,” Tom Reed writes in Great Wyoming Bear Stories, a book of yarns from the wild high county in and around Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks — land he calls the grizzly bear’s “last, best stronghold.” Unlike the authors of the many “slasher” bear books on the market, Reed writes with […]