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 […]
News
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Score one for the owl
A federal judge has clamped down on permits for new subdivisions, roads, power lines, shopping malls, and other projects in the habitat of the endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl in and around Tucson. Many of Tucson’s suburbs continued to approve subdivisions after the pygmy-owl was listed in 1997, despite a county-wide effort to preserve the owl’s […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Wilderness water wins round in court
In what Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, calls a “devastating blow to Idaho’s water sovereignty,” almost 3,000 claims to water rights upstream of Idaho wilderness areas were placed in doubt by an Oct. 1 ruling of the Idaho Supreme Court. The court ruled 3-2 that when the federal government established wilderness areas in Idaho, it also […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Court enforces a healthy environment
A provision in Montana’s constitution guaranteeing residents a “clean and healthful environment” has as much bite as bark, thanks to a recent Montana Supreme Court ruling. In October, the court unanimously agreed that that the constitution protects the state’s resources from actual, proven damage, and from potential harm as well. “Our constitution does not require […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
The Wayward West
New York-based copper producer Asarco Inc. said Oct. 25 that it has signed an agreement to merge with Mexico’s largest copper company, Grupo Mexico (HCN, 4/13/98). Total value of the deal is $1.18 billion. The copper industry has been consolidating in reaction to a global oversupply of the metal and record low prices earlier this […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Judge topples small timber sales
HOTCHKISS, Colo. – Allen Todd has been in the timber business on Colorado’s Western Slope for about a quarter of a century, and his small but tidy custom sawmill outside the town of Hotchkiss reflects his years of experience. Looking like oversized games of Jenga, neat towers of square timbers, which will soon reinforce shafts […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Can a hog farm bring home the bacon?
MELLETTE COUNTY, S.D. – In this vast, largely empty sea of rolling prairie grass, where little is shiny and new, the sun mirroring off the galvanized silver roof panels of 24 enormous, brand-new hog barns is a remarkable sight. It’s the start of the largest-ever development on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. North Dakota-based Bell Farms […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
On the Missouri, the middle grounds gets soggy
Only a decade ago, animosity between states in the Missouri River’s upper and lower basins was out of control. If the states weren’t suing each other over Missouri River flows, they were attacking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for that agency’s management of the river system. South Dakota Gov. William Janklow grumbled that the […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
The Wayward West
Conservationists in north-central Washington worked hard and fast to raise over $13.1 million to keep chain saws out of the 25,000 acre Loomis Forest (HCN, 5/24/99). Now, the state’s Board of Natural Resources says they’re millions of dollars short. After wrestling over the value of the forest’s timber for more than a year, the board […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Clinton proclaims a far-reaching forest plan
President Clinton made headlines Oct. 13, when he announced a sweeping initiative to protect 40-60 million acres of unroaded national forests. At a ceremony in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest in Virginia, Clinton put his full support behind permanent protection for land currently covered by an 18-month road-building moratorium, in addition to roadless […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Mohave agrees to clean up its act
Mohave agrees to clean up its act The view from the rim of the Grand Canyon will be clearer, thanks to a major cleanup at one of the Southwest’s largest coal-burning power plants. Owners of the Mohave Generating Station in southern Nevada and environmental groups announced the news Oct. 3, following a court settlement. “This […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
The least of these
A tiny, colorful fish that lives in the desert springs and marshes of western Utah is on the rebound – without ever having been listed as threatened or endangered. The algae-feeding least chub once lived throughout Utah’s West Desert, but by the early 1990s, the fish were found only in four ponds along the Utah-Nevada […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
CAP could feed a new Arizona lake
Sonoran Desert dwellers between Tucson and Phoenix might one day be able to boat the Colorado River without leaving their backyards. Rural Pinal County says it wants to take a billion gallons of Colorado River water and pump it into a manmade lake. Thanks to the Central Arizona Project, the three-quarter mile, $7 million reservoir […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Water starts fires in Tucson election
TUCSON, Ariz. – Late one fall night in 1992, car dealer Bob Beaudry awoke to the sound of water gushing from a burst pipe. The water spilling into his basement, bedrooms and his front and back yards came from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project (CAP), a long-awaited, $4.7 billion concrete canal that […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Nevada rebellion ends with a whimper
JARBIDGE, Nev. – Is this is the way a Sagebrush Rebellion ends: not with a revolution, but with one more barbecue to clean up? The latest skirmish began with great promise, at least according to organizers. More than a thousand people were supposed to show up with picks and shovels to open a washed-out Forest […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
The Wayward West
Idaho Lt. Gov. Butch Otter can’t stay out of hot water. The Environmental Protection Agency recently socked Otter with an $80,000 fine for dredging 2.7 acres of wetlands and a stream channel without a permit. It was his third EPA violation since 1992. Otter told the Idaho Statesman he accepted responsibility for failing to secure […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Developer told to scale back
Developer Jim Mehen hoped to build a golf course and gated community of 300 luxury homes on his 407 acres near Flagstaff, Ariz. He’d revised his plans repeatedly in the past two years to meet county concerns. But misgivings about development in the volcanic caldera and wetland remained, and opposition to the project gathered momentum. […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Dudes on the dunes
-We struggled to scramble up near-vertical walls of loose sand,” writes Mark North in the online magazine Explore. “Still, the weight of the tent, beer, snowboard and snowboard boots on my backpack didn’t topple me over … At the summit, we’d swap snowshoes for snowboards … spray on a coat of Pledge to increase glide, […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Resort may crowd Mount Rainier
Ashford, Wash., a rural town of about 1,500 people that is only a stone’s toss from the western gate of Mount Rainier National Park, may soon have a big, new neighbor. Earlier this month, Pierce County endorsed plans for a $70 million, 400-acre resort that would more than double the number of housing units in […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Dooming a dam saves dollars
Dooming a dam saves dollars The operator of the Condit Dam in southeastern Washington recently concluded that what’s good for the salmon is also good for the company’s bottom line. On Sept. 22, it agreed to demolish the dam by 2006. In 1996, the federal government told dam operator PacifiCorp that a new license for […]