It’s hard to make straight lines stick to the earth, writes Robert Leo Heilman in Overstory: Zero; Real Life in Timber Country, and even harder in hilly Douglas County, Ore. In his book of 32 essays, Heilman returns to this theme again and again; he likes the earth’s reluctance to bend to blueprints, whether he […]
Sarah Dry
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
The Cowboy State gets shook up by 100,000 hogs
WHEATLAND, Wyo. – Scott Taylor looks down into a pit designed to contain 31 million gallons of liquid hog waste, and he sighs. Except for three yellow bulldozers scraping away at the dirt, it’s empty. “I can’t wait to get some pigs in this place,” says Taylor, 35. The production manager of Wyoming Premium Farms, […]
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
The West’s lax rules draw hog factories
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Factory hog farms have followed the same trail blazed more than a century ago by American pioneers. The farms started nearly a decade ago in the heart of pig country – Iowa – and in the heart of chicken country – North […]
Posted inJune 9, 1997: Chaos comes to Costilla County
Hogs and a small town co-exist
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. ALBIN, Wyo. – In this town of just 120 people some 50 miles southeast of Wheatland, hogs have been a part of the landscape for a decade. But the owner of a mini-empire of 11,000 sows, which bear up to 250,000 pigs […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Marathon Oil sues to get into roadless area
In a case that could set a precedent for how citizen-proposed wilderness in Colorado is managed, an oil company is suing the Bureau of Land Management for pulling certain parcels from a routine oil and gas lease sale. The Texas-based Marathon Oil company says the lands do not lie in official wilderness study areas and […]
Posted inApril 28, 1997: Evangelical Christians preach a green gospel
Nevada ranchers win water rights
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 […]
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
Frogs sport too many legs
Eight-legged frogs give biologists the willies. They say the deformed amphibians – like canaries in a mine – indicate environmental problems that could affect the two-legged as well. So when extra-legged Pacific tree frogs surfaced in three westside Oregon communities last summer, researchers took notice. No one knew what to make of the phenomenon until […]
Posted inMarch 31, 1997: Big Sky, big mess in Montana
Coyotes could get culled
For the last decade, biologist Alan Clark has watched the number of endangered Columbian white-tailed deer decline at a national wildlife refuge dedicated to protecting them. Now, with only 60 deer surviving on a 2,000-acre section of the southwestern Washington refuge – half the number there should be – Clark says the situation is critical. […]
Posted inMarch 31, 1997: Big Sky, big mess in Montana
‘Developer’ wants access to Oregon wilderness
For many, wilderness designation – the promise that no roads and no permanent structures will mar a sensitive area – is an environmental dream come true. But 12 miles within southwestern Oregon’s Kalmiopsis Wilderness, a man with old mining claims wants to improve a road and build a resort. He’s calling it “reasonable access,” a […]
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 inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Ski resort beefs up
The Forest Service won’t allow developers on Oregon’s Mount Hood to expand onto more public land. But the agency will allow 5,000 more skiers, six new chairlifts and a restaurant on the slopes. The Mount Hood Meadows ski area is a private business that operates on Forest Service land under a special-use permit. The developers, […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Is there oil under Utah’s new monument?
Conoco announced recently that it wants to drill one or two exploratory wells in the heart of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the newly established 1.7 million-acre wilderness preserve in southeastern Utah (HCN, 9/30/96). The oil company hopes to begin testing wells on two 10-year leases before they expire in November, but the company is […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Idaho activists win one
A federal judge in Idaho recently overturned the 1995 convictions of 12 wilderness activists on the charge of violating a road closure in the Cove-Mallard area (HCN, 9/2/96). District Judge Edward Lodge ruled that when the Forest Service closed roads to the Jack Creek sale, it infringed on the First Amendment right to petition the […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
Jobs open up in Washington
A jumble of changes at the nation’s land-management agencies leaves two top posts empty. The opening at the Bureau of Land Management will be filled temporarily by Sylvia Baca, a New Mexico native. Baca’s permanent job is as deputy assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management, also in the Interior Department. She replaces Michael Dombeck, […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Sting nets bird killers
In today’s booming black market for migratory bird parts, a single bald eagle feather can fetch $100. Given such prices, it’s not surprising that a two-year U.S. Fish and Wildlife sting operation netted 35 individuals and businesses allegedly involved in the killing and selling of protected migratory birds in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. 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 inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Is Craig’s bill Salvage Rider II?
One of the hottest environmental topics of the last Congress – forest management – is back, and, if early reaction is any gauge, it hasn’t cooled down any. Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, R, whose Energy and Natural Resources Committee produced the controversial salvage logging rider two years ago, recently drafted a massive bill that would […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
Western raptors on the rise
Some birds of prey in the West are fighting back. The Salt Lake City-based group, HawkWatch International, recently compiled up to 18 years’ of data on the birds collected from sites in Nevada, Utah and New Mexico and found a fast rate of growth among merlins, ospreys and peregrine falcons. The average annual population increase […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 1997: Bees under siege
Grand Canyon rafting fees inflate
For many rafters, it doesn’t get any better than a float trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Would-be boaters often spend as long as 10 years waiting for one of 200 private launch dates granted each year. A new fee increase at Grand Canyon National Park may give them second thoughts: an […]