SEATTLE, Wash. – After the tear gas cleared from Seattle’s streets, environmentalists and labor unions emerged as the only clear winners from last week’s tumultuous World Trade Organization ministerial meeting. Trade officials hoped that the meeting, the first major WTO event held in the U.S., would be a smooth North American debut for the international […]
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Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
The Wayward West
Colorado River water is going to the bank. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says a final plan allows Nevada, California and Arizona to negotiate deals for storing surplus Colorado River water. The three states will soon be able to store the water in underground aquifers for later use or even sell it for cash, which Babbitt […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Babbitt’s wish list grows
Some western Colorado locals were nervous when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt visited the Colorado National Monument in November to announce his latest land-protection initiative. “Any time the secretary of the Interior comes to little Grand Junction, you’re apprehensive about what he’s got on his mind,” said Warren Gore, a third-generation grazing permittee. “The last thing […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
A river too warm
Three environmental groups have sued the Environmental Protection Agency over the warm wastewater that flows out of the Potlatch Corp. pulp and paper mill in Lewiston, Idaho. The Lands Council, Idaho Rivers United and the Idaho Conservation League say bull trout, salmon and steelhead can’t survive when the Snake River heats up. All the fish […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Battling over the bottom line
Congress and the Clinton administration have finally called a truce on the national budget. On Nov. 19, the House and Senate approved a $385 billion spending package, including $14.9 billion for the Interior Department. Both sides are claiming victory, but Will Hart, spokesman for Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, calls the process “frustrating.” “(We were) dealing […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Fossil Creek will flow again
What was planned as an angry protest turned into a jubilant celebration on Nov. 18, after Arizona Public Service agreed to restore Fossil Creek, nearly dry for more than 80 years (HCN, 11/22/99). “It’s huge,” says Lisa Force of the Center for Biological Diversity, which had planned to picket APS headquarters before the decision was […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
A bighorn dilemma
Should predators be killed to protect prey? That’s the strategy in New Mexico, where the state’s Game Commission says killing mountain lions is the best way to bolster dwindling populations of desert bighorn sheep. To save the remaining 220 sheep, most of which have been reintroduced by the state’s Fish and Game Department, the commission […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
‘Spiritual hucksterism’ attacked in Boulder
A former Naropa University student sued the Boulder, Colo., liberal arts college this fall, claiming “cultural genocide” and “spiritual hucksterism,” amid threats of a campus occupation by American Indian activists. Lydia White Calf and her Oglala Lakota husband, Royce, accused the co-founder of Naropa’s Native American Studies program of illegally practicing sacred ceremonies in the […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Pumice mine is a test case
The U.S. Forest Service is suing an Arizona mining company for taking pumice from the San Francisco Peaks. If Tufflite Inc. loses, it could owe the government up to $300,000 for illegally mining on the Coconino National Forest northeast of Flagstaff. The mining company insists it owes nothing because pumice is considered unique and therefore […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Uranium haunts the Colorado Plateau
CROWNPOINT, N.M. – As a trademark New Mexico sunset paints pastels over this high desert town, it’s hard to imagine that the poisonous legacy of uranium mining could be repeated here. During the 1950s and ’60s, this town of about 2,000 near the Navajo Reservation was hit by a uranium mining boom. It left Navajos […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Court reads the environment its rights
MISSOULA, Mont. – Tom France talks like a man who knows he’s made history. For three years, France, an attorney with the National Wildlife Federation, has been battling a proposed gold mine on Montana’s Blackfoot River (HCN, 12/22/97). In October, he won a ruling from the Montana Supreme Court that could mean the end of […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Decision may help a granddaddy keep its teeth
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”Court reads the environment its rights.” The October supreme court ruling may help clarify the granddaddy of Montana’s environmental laws, the Montana Environmental Policy Act, or MEPA, which dates back to 1971. Modeled after the National Environmental Policy […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Tribe slowed down on road to showbiz
Many Indian tribes are land rich and cash poor. Not the Muckleshoots. The 1,500-member tribe lives on a tiny 3,500-acre reservation between Seattle and Mount Rainier, and last year, its casino and bingo hall brought in an estimated $48 million. For more than seven years, the tribe has been working on another moneymaker: the White […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Tree-sitters and timber company celebrate
Sarah Vekasi was prepared to spend the winter perched in an old Douglas fir tree near the town of Randle, Wash., in order to stop the trade of old-growth forest out of public ownership. Thanks to a recent reworking of a complicated land swap, it looks like she’ll stay warm, dry and on the ground. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Hunters cry: too many predators
A booming wolf population around Yellowstone National Park has local sportsmen up in arms. More than 2,500 people have sent in a dollar to join the newly formed Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd, according to founder Robert Fanning. The group wants to take wolves off the endangered species list and give the state […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
The Wayward West
The first reported case of chronic wasting disease has hit Montana. The fatal disorder has been slowly spreading throughout the West’s elk and deer populations for the past 30 years (HCN, 9/27/99). Early this month, an autopsy report proved it killed a game farm elk on the Kesler ranch in Philipsburg. Josh Turner of the […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Nonstop service to the Mojave Desert?
A 6,500-acre swath of federally owned desert, 10 miles from California’s Mojave National Preserve, could become the site of a new Las Vegas airport. But environmentalists and the National Park Service say airport overflights will ruin the preserve visitor’s experience. “One of the really special things about Mojave is the opportunity for solace and quiet,” […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
A tired stream gains new steam
STRAWBERRY, Ariz. – Below Arizona’s Mogollon Rim, Fossil Springs bubbles from the ground to water a dry land. From the springs, Fossil Creek used to flow almost 15 miles through scrubby mesquite and pinon trees before it emptied into the Verde River. But for almost a century, a dam built a quarter-mile from the springs […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Figuring out FERC
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “A tired stream gains new steam.” Relicensing of a hydroelectric project begins at least two years before the old license expires. After an application is filed, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gives public notice, and any member […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Nevadans drive out forest supervisor
RENO, Nev. – After enduring a year and a half of what she calls Nevada’s “fed bashing,” Gloria Flora couldn’t take it anymore. The supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the largest national forest in the lower 48 states, submitted her resignation Nov. 8. But Flora didn’t go quietly. Instead, she used her resignation to […]