A WILDERNESS PROPOSAL FOR COLORADO Forty-nine conservation groups ranging from the Sierra Club to the Sheep Mountain Alliance have proposed the creation of 1.3 million acres of additional wilderness in Colorado. Instead of high-elevation rock and ice, these lands are primarily desert and canyon country managed by the Bureau of Land Management. In a recently […]
Staff
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
New river watchers
Some members of Amigos Bravos, a conservation group in New Mexico that focuses on the Rio Grande and Rio Bravo rivers, have broken away and formed a new group, Rio Grande Restoration. The group’s quarterly newsletter, the Rio Grande Riverkeeper, says Rio Grande recreationists such as rafters pumped $4.6 million into local economies in 1992. […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
No new roads
New rules proposed by the Interior Department limit the ability of states and counties to build highways across public lands. The rules clarify Revised Statute 2477, an 1866 law that granted rights-of-way on federal lands (HCN, 3/21/94). The law was repealed 18 years ago but it did not nullify any earlier rights-of-way. Since then, some […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
Incoming
The U.S. Army still plans to eject missile debris over Utah, but wants to adjust its aim. Many residents of Moab, Utah, as well as environmentalists from elsewhere, protested an earlier plan to drop 1-ton missile boosters northeast of a heavily visited area in Canyonlands National Park (HCN, 4/19/94). Now the Army proposes to allow […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
Ranchers face competition
In a break with precedent around the West, conservationists in Oregon will now be allowed to bid against ranchers for leases on state-owned land (HCN, 7/25/94). By a 2-1 vote, the Oregon Land Board gave the okay July 29 to competitive bidding and specified that state land can be leased for “conservation use.” Some parcels […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
From sacred to suburb
A neighborhood group in Boise, Idaho, is trying to raise $75,000 to protect Native American burial sites from residential development. The East End Neighborhood Association wants to buy land sacred to Shoshone, Bannock and Paiute tribes near Castle Rock, a mile from downtown Boise. For centuries, the tribes say, their sick and wounded came to […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
Cattle kicked off salmon range
To protect spawning salmon, cattle on four allotments in Oregon’s Wallowa-Whitman National Forest have been shifted away from streams. The Forest Service reacted to a federal appeals court injunction that banned all grazing, logging and road building in parts of the Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla national forests. The appeals court had found that the Forest Service […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
Whose public lands?
The evolving battle over management of the West’s vast public lands is the focus of a three-day conference sponsored by the University of Colorado’s Natural Resources Law Center. “Who governs the public lands: Washington? The West? The community?” features Western heavyweights from academia, industry, environmental groups and federal agencies discussing everything from grazing reform to […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
‘Takings’ takes a hit
The state can block development that threatens Native American burial mounds, the Iowa Supreme Court has ruled. The court rejected an argument that to block such developments would weaken property rights, reports AP. The dispute began when developers bought a 59-acre tract in rural Story County, Iowa, to develop a pricey subdivision. When developers sold […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Teaming up
Because more than 20 state, tribal and federal agencies share control of the 2 million-acre Henry’s Fork Basin in eastern Idaho and western Wyoming, planning has been fragmented. There have been jurisdictional battles between the two states and not much concerted environmental protection. To end the divisiveness, two former adversaries – the Henry’s Fork Foundation […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Restoring the Rio Grande
Water levels on the Rio Grande River dropped so low in 1988, says rafting guide Steve Harris, that his business almost came to a screeching halt. He and another El Prado, N.M., outfitter then began asking each client to contribute $1 each for conservation programs, and in two years they raised more than $30,000. Other […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Agency cuts timber cut
Timber cuts in the heavily logged Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota will plummet 25 percent under a revised forest plan released last month. Forest staff studied eight alternatives and recommended setting the allowable timber harvest at 86.7 million board-feet per year for the next decade, almost 30 mmbf less than the current plan […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
No room for “pseudo-Indian charlatans”
New-age religion and Native American tradition clashed at Bear Butte State Park in western South Dakota earlier this summer. The Lakota and other tribes say the 4,422-foot landmark is being desecrated by non-Indians who use it for male-bonding weekends and crystal worship. More than 100 people, mostly Lakota, protested at the butte in June. “Sometimes […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Idaho wilderness bill fails
Idaho Rep. Larry LaRocco, D, abandoned his attempt to push an Idaho wilderness bill through Congress this year. LaRocco struggled for 18 months to formulate a bill, but shelved it this July. “Once you get into the summer months and closer to November … the people who like to kill things become active,” said LaRocco […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Where have all the tourists gone?
After all the worry and publicity about overcrowding at the Grand Canyon, the Park Service reported that visitation this summer has dropped by nearly 12 percent from last year. Not everyone is relieved; local businesses banking on a record-breaking flood of tourists are hurting. Theories about the decline range from the hot weather to foreign […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Colorado water map
To help end the chronic battling over water in Colorado, a group has formed to provide impartial information on water issues. The nonprofit Colorado Water Education Forum is made up of 33 volunteers representing virtually every water interest in the state, ranging from farmers and dam builders to environmentalists and wildlife agency staffers. The group’s […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Now you see them …
Indian ruins in the Southwest are disappearing, but it’s for their own good. Cartographers are wiping famous Anasazi sites off their maps. Due to a hot black market for sacred Indian objects and increased numbers of tourists, ancient cities such as Keet Seel, Awatovi, Hawikuh and Cutthroat Castle will no longer appear on many road […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Pesticides linger in Northwest
A report commissioned by the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides found major groundwater contamination in five Northwest states. Neva Hasanein, the author of Uncovering the Legacy of Pesticide Use: What We Know About Ground Water Contamination in the Northwest, gathered information from researchers and government agencies in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and northern California. […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Animas-La Plata a financial boondoggle
The Inspector General’s office of the Department of Interior says costs have soared so high on the $635 million Animas-La Plata water project that it is “economically infeasible.” That pronouncement was made in a draft report addressed March 14 to U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Dan Beard on the controversial dam-and-irrigation project proposed for southwestern […]
Posted inAugust 8, 1994: Glitz and growth take a major hit in Santa Fe
Eating the scenery
Communities throughout the rural West worry about their futures, as wealthy urbanites buy property for vacation homes and speculation. Will congestion, pollution and increased property values destroy the very qualities that make these areas attractive? A report by CHEC, an Oregon economics consulting firm, says that it doesn’t have to be this way. Rural communities […]