For about a year, pollutants from a defunct gold mine have been leaking into the Rito Seco Creek near San Luis, a small farming community in southern Colorado. The creek feeds the San Luis People’s Ditch, the oldest irrigation ditch in the state, and many farmers fear their water supply is being destroyed. The Texas-based […]
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Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Recreation drives a forest
Colorado’s White River National Forest is a busy place. It hosts 11 ski areas – two-thirds of the state’s downhill skiing – and attracts about 8.4 million visitors a year (HCN, 12/7/98). Recreation use has boomed, with four-wheel drive devotees wanting more roads, and cross-country skiers hoping for more huts for winter use. Now, a […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
A fresh breeze hits Western utilities
You can count on the wind in Wyomin’, beer when it’s foamin’, the road when it’s roamin’ … – Song by Rob McLaren and Spencer Bohren of the Gone Johnson Band MEDICINE BOW, Wyo. – Just south of this tiny hamlet stands the world’s largest windmill. Reaching almost 400 feet in the air when its […]
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Another wilderness developer pops up
PARADISE VALLEY, Mont. – Chain saws are running in the middle of the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness. There’s a miniature backhoe there, too, along with a regular series of noisy helicopters, hauling in work crews. The man responsible is having a blast, like a kid with a new toy. All this would be illegal on public […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
The Wayward West
Meridian, Idaho, will host a high-visibility merger Oct. 2, when Rep. Helen Chenoweth, 61, weds Wayne Hage, 62. Chenoweth is famous for fighting federal protection of endangered species and wilderness (HCN, 9/28/98). Her betrothed, a rancher from Tonopah, Nev., has battled the Forest Service in court for almost a decade over grazing (HCN, 10/30/95). Invitations […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
Crow tribe lays claim to elk
The Crow Tribe has launched a plan to capture 550 wild elk on its reservation in the Bighorn Mountains of Montana. It’s the beginning of the tribe’s foray into game farming, but it is also sure to mark the beginning of a bitter battle over publicly owned wildlife. “It is a spooky proposal, that’s for […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
Downwinders speak up and pay up
More than 500 residents of Jackson Hole, Wyo., packed a meeting hall in late August to fight a nuclear-waste incinerator planned for eastern Idaho. The crowd rallied to the evangelical fervor of Gerry Spence, the flamboyant lawyer who has built a national career on high-profile cases. By the end of the evening, everyone from movie […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
A rare vote on water
For decades, water conservancy districts across the West have been shielded from the ballot box. Almost always, judges or governors appoint the board members, who have the power to levy taxes. This summer, for only the second time in 62 years, voters in Colorado had the chance to elect board members to a water district. […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
The Cowboy State’s next boom
GILLETTE, Wyo. – Will Wyoming’s arid Powder River Basin be home to cranberry bogs and alligator farms? Most people aren’t taking such suggestions too seriously yet. But thanks to a boom in coal-bed methane development, the basin will soon have more water than anyone knows what to do with. “The fact is, we’re going to […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
Disease is wasting the West’s wild herds
Nobody knows where the disease came from, or if it has existed forever, confined to the lodgepole forests, shortgrass prairies and alfalfa fields of north-central Colorado and southeast Wyoming. It is not known how it passes among its victims. What is certain is that the whitetails, mule deer and elk that contract it inevitably die […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
A Lewis and Clark revival hits the Northwest
While tracing the steps of Lewis and Clark, Judy Anderson has stopped off at two dozen places where the explorers walked nearly 200 years ago. Among these, Pompey’s Pillar, a lonely landmark on the plains of southeastern Montana, remains fixed in her memory. There, immortalized behind Plexiglas, she saw William Clark’s signature carved into soft […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
The Wayward West
Endangered chinook salmon have put the brakes on a new traffic light at a dangerous intersection in Puyallup, Wash. Because the light will be funded with federal money, the city must complete a biological assessment to determine if construction will harm salmon or other wildlife. Nearby resident Pam Bott told AP a two-month delay is […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Wolves and cows don’t mix
A pack of endangered Mexican wolves that developed a taste for beef headed back to captivity in early August. The Arizona Game and Fish Department captured seven wolves from the Pipestem Pack after they attacked cattle north of Clifton, Ariz. Three Pipestem pups have since died of parvovirus, a canine disease they apparently picked up […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Quincy experiment to begin
The Quincy Library Group claimed a hard-fought victory last month after the U.S. Forest Service doubled logging on three California forests while protecting habitat for the northern spotted owl. After years of bitter battles against environmentalists, attorney and group co-founder and Michael Jackson can’t help gloating. “This is absolute complete vindication,” he says. The Forest […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Tempers flare over winter plan
Gardiner, Mont., is a sleepy town in the winter. Yellowstone National Park’s northern gateway community virtually closes down when the park’s roads do. The local fly shop rents cross-country skis, and a handful of cafés serve burgers for lunch. A few sight-seers drive into the park at dawn and dusk in search of the park’s […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Ranch is a squirrel sanctuary
When cattleman Frank Anderson settled into a remote house in rural Idaho, ground squirrels were the furthest thing from his mind. But once the critters emerged from hibernation, he could hardly ignore them as they devoured the chow he left outside for his dogs. “The bloody things were eating more dog food than the dogs,” […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Bear spray manufacturers get a hit of reality
MISSOULA, Mont. – One summer night in 1977, Bill Pounds awoke to chewing and grunting sounds outside his tent. The disabled Vietnam vet had set up camp near Hungry Horse Reservoir in northwestern Montana. “Coming from Arkansas, I thought it was a wild hog,” he says. Then he remembered that there are no wild hogs […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
A spray can is no substitute for smarts
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Bear spray manufacturers get a hit of reality.” Even if armed with an effective bear spray, backcountry users should not let down their guard, says Gary Moses, bear specialist at Glacier National Park. Grizzly attacks are infrequent, […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
The Wayward West
A golf course planned for a national forest has landed in the rough. In 1998, the Sierra Club legally challenged a 1997 decision allowing Dempsey Construction to expand Snowcreek Golf Course onto 95 acres of national forest (HCN, 2/16/98). This month, Inyo National Forest Supervisor Jeff Bailey withdrew the permission. “We have determined that there […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Second tram heads for Moab
The redrock desert around the tourist town of Moab, Utah, has been colonized by motels and mountain bikers for over a decade. Still, some locals never thought they’d have to worry about ski lifts. Now, less than six months after a controversial chairlift opened for business on the west side of Moab, the county planning […]