MONTANA A federal judge says a family living inside Montana’s Glacier National Park can no longer use a snowmobile to access their property. Former Denver residents Jack and Stephanie McFarland sued Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in Missoula’s U.S. District Court on Feb. 2. The McFarlands said park officials had acted improperly when they refused to […]
News
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
Roadkill keeps the peace
WASHINGTON In January, hunters from eastern Washington’s Methow Valley delivered 300 pounds of roadkilled deer to six western Washington tribes. The delivery signaled the start of a groundbreaking agreement, in which the tribes agree to stop hunting in the valley in exchange for the meat. Tribal hunters have lost much of their traditional hunting ground […]
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
What to do about “Frankenfoods’?
NATION The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may say bioengineered foods are safe, but two natural-food chains say they don’t trust the agency’s word. Boulder, Colo.-based Wild Oats Markets and Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods Market are banning genetically engineered foods from their private product lines. “There are significant unanswered health and environmental concerns,” says a […]
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
HCN at 30: The saga begins
On the cover of the Oct. 22, 1970, issue of High Country News, there’s a photograph of a hunter packing out what later would become the paper’s mascot, the Rocky Mountain goat. The man – Charlie Farmer of Cheyenne, Wyo. – was the first person to bag a mountain goat in Wyoming’s first official hunt. […]
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
A prof takes on the sacred cow
Wyoming’s Cowboy Joes jump on a grazing critic
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
To breach or not to breach
Salmon advocates stand up for tearing down dams
Posted inFebruary 28, 2000: Acre by acre
A town defends a peacemaker
District Ranger Linda Duffy opened her door to the community
Posted inFebruary 14, 2000: Land of the fee
The Wayward West
For the first time, the federal government concedes that workers at 14 nuclear weapons plants, including the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state (HCN, 9/1/97: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia), were exposed to cancer-causing radiation and chemicals. The Department of Energy report linked radiation exposure to the high rates of cancers […]
Posted inFebruary 14, 2000: Land of the fee
How green is your politico?
A new television ad campaign in Washington state lets voters know which candidates up for re-election next fall have minded their green p’s and q’s. The $2 million project got under way in mid-January, and it features the nationally syndicated Bill Nye, the “Science Guy,” who uses humor and science to teach the public how […]
Posted inFebruary 14, 2000: Land of the fee
From missile silo to theme park
Tourists can explore the home of a Minuteman
Posted inFebruary 14, 2000: Land of the fee
Mumma resigns – wildlife division shaken up
Nine years ago, Northern Regional Forester John Mumma stood tearfully before a House subcommittee and said he had been betrayed by the Forest Service (HCN, 10/7/91). Because he didn’t meet timber quotas in the 13 national forests under his care, he said, powerful industry and political interests had conspired to force him out of his […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Arizona gets a new monument
ST. GEORGE, Utah – President Clinton stood on the chilly, wind-whipped South Rim of the Grand Canyon in mid-January and announced the creation of the million-acre Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument in northwest Arizona. The next day, southwest Utah’s daily newspaper duly reported the announcement, but it shared front-page space with another story – one that […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Judge rules on Indian money mess
A federal judge says he’ll personally oversee the Interior Department’s effort to untangle a mess of mismanaged Indian trust money. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth’s decision settled the first half of a class-action lawsuit, led by banker Elouise Cobell of the Blackfeet tribe. She and others charged the federal government with losing track of billions […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Incinerator unsafe, says former Tooele manager
A former manager for the Army’s chemical weapons incinerator in rural Tooele County says he was told he would lose his job if he talked about the plant’s environmental problems. During a January press conference, Gary E. Harris made public a list of over 100 questionable activities by the Army and its contractor, EG&G, at […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Off-road riders told to stay on the road
Off-road vehicles, from 4×4’s to motorcycles, are under the gun. For years ORV users have been free to ride across public lands in the West unless signs designated an area closed. But concerns about erosion, damage to wildlife habitat and renegade road building could turn this policy on its head. In November, the Forest Service […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
The Wayward West
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt says he’s one step closer to protecting 1.1 million acres of West Desert wilderness (HCN, 7/5/99). To garner support for a federal wilderness bill, Leavitt has agreed to trade to the Bureau of Land Management 118,000 acres of school-trust land within the proposed wilderness for 128,000 acres of federal land near […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Political war continues over bison herd
All is quiet on the western front of Yellowstone National Park. As 50 bison graze within a few miles of the park border near West Yellowstone. So far this winter the animals have had no reason to cross the park line; mild weather has made foraging easy. Outside that boundary, in what has become an […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Montana burns game farm elk
On a cold and windy morning last Dec. 7, livestock officials began killing the elk on the Kesler Game Farm near Philipsburg, Mont. The herd had been under quarantine for chronic wasting disease for over a year when an elk that had just died on the ranch was found to be infected. Local game wardens […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Yellowstone wolves are here to stay
Almost 300 wolves that are part of a transplant program in Yellowstone National Park and Idaho can remain in their new homes, thanks to a new ruling. On Jan. 13, a three-judge panel from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver reversed a two-year-old decision by Federal Judge William Downes that a federal […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Mountain of mine waste may move after all
MOAB, Utah – A decade-long battle over a 10.5 million-ton uranium mill tailings site near the Colorado River (HCN, 4/13/98) may finally be coming to an end. Here, on Jan. 14, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced his support for a plan to transfer control of the abandoned Atlas Corp. mill site to […]