QUINCY, Calif. – The day after President Clinton signed the Quincy Library Group’s forest management plan into law on Oct. 22, members of the grassroots coalition celebrated with a sparkling cider toast. That was it. No Main Street parade. No victory banner across the Plumas County Courthouse. After five years of planning, plotting and politicking […]
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Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Even in the remote West, growth happens
STEHEKIN, Wash. – Tucked into a narrow mountain valley on the shore of Lake Chelan is a village so small it barely qualifies for the state map. A single phone serves its 70 residents, no roads lead here and only a ferry links Stehekin with the nearest grocery store in the small city of Chelan, […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Vail fires outrage community
VAIL, Colo. – Vail Resorts has never enjoyed so much support. The early-morning fires that destroyed cafeterias and other ski facilities atop Vail Mountain, causing $12 million in damage, have transformed the nation’s largest ski area into a victim. The Earth Liberation Front – Internet sites identify it as a splinter group of Earth First! […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Deaths drive change at Lake Mead
BOULDER CITY, Nev. – Lake Mead has never pretended to be anything but a watersports playground for the masses. Recreational pursuits that would make visitors outlaws at most areas managed by the National Park Service get a warm reception at Lake Mead. This summer, the lake hosted a hydroplane boat race, a bass-fishing tournament and […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Roadless, for now
Colorado environmentalists stopped two roadless-area timber sales last month. A federal judge agreed with a Colorado Environmental Coalition lawsuit when he told the Forest Service that the agency didn’t properly account for the protection of two sensitive species, the northern goshawk and the boreal owl, in preparing the Trout Mountain timber sale on the Rio […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
The Wayward West
The Forest Service won’t give Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young information about connections between agency staffers and environmental groups. In July, Young asked Southwest Regional Forester Eleanor Towns for a list of employees who are members of groups like the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity and Forest Guardians (HCN, 9/14/98). In a Sept. 21 letter, […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
On The Trail
Washington state voters are sure to elect a woman to the U.S. Senate Nov. 3. The question is, which woman – Democratic incumbent Patty Murray or Republican Linda Smith. Only nine seats in the U.S. Senate are now held by women. Smith jumped into the Senate race after serving two terms in the U.S. House […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
A tie that binds: county income and timber
Peg Reagan wasn’t a typical Western county commissioner. For starters, she’s an environmentalist. “I was in the minority on any land-use issue,” she says of her four-year term on the Curry County Commission in southwestern Oregon. After leaving office in 1995, she decided it was time for the minority to get organized. She founded the […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Mines must clean up their mess
In the forested highlands of central Arizona, copper mining has been a mainstay of the local economy for nearly a century. But the area’s paychecks come with a hidden price: The groundwater and soil are now contaminated with acidic metals, and a plume of toxics threatens the Phoenix water supply. Last year, the state of […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Next: Grand Teton International?
Passengers who fly into the tiny Jackson Hole, Wyo., airport may not realize it, but they’re landing inside a national park. Airline representatives have argued for years that the Jackson runway should be lengthened for easier access. But Grand Teton National Park officials and environmentalists have steadfastly opposed the idea, saying an expansion would further […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Are birds to blame for vanishing salmon?
ASTORIA, Ore. – In late May, when young salmon and steelhead ride the spring freshet down to the mouth of the Columbia River, Rice Island is a scene of wildlife bedlam. The island, a stretch of windswept sand 21 miles from the river mouth, hosts the world’s largest nesting colony of Caspian terns – as […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Citizens tame growth – their way
LIVINGSTON, Mont. – Paradise is a place with a population of one, says Charles Rahn. A rancher whose family has owned a 3,300-acre operation southeast of town for 50 years, Rahn says, “It’s only paradise for the first person who shows up.” So last year, Rahn led a successful petition drive to form a 66,000-acre […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Building a $100 million paradise in Montana’s Paradise Valley
EMIGRANT, Mont. – In the early 1900s, when Yellowstone Park Superintendent Horace Albright looked upon Paradise Valley, his neighbor to the north, he proclaimed: “If that area were in any other state, it would have been a national park.” Framed by mountains and split down the middle by the Yellowstone River, Paradise Valley has always […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
A water baron takes on the establishment
One-word descriptions of rancher Gary Boyce are easy to find in the high, wide and impoverished San Luis Valley of south-central Colorado. “Greedy” comes up often, as does “opportunist,” along with terms unprintable even by Starr Report standards. But “flamboyant” also fits. Boyce is generous with expensive cigars and wears knee-high hand-tooled stove-pipe cowboy boots […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Wolves develop an appetite for beef
In Montana, ranchers and government officials remain baffled by the Ninemile wolves’ appetite for beef. Since April, the wolf pack, originally made famous in Rick Bass’s book, The Ninemile Wolves, has been responsible for killing four calves and one 600-pound yearling. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in turn, has been responsible for killing four […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A county writes strict logging rules
A pro-logging northern New Mexico county has passed a far-reaching law that mandates watershed-friendly logging practices on private land. “There’s nothing else like this (in the U.S.),” said attorney David Gomez of the Western Environmental Law Center in Taos, N.M., who helped draft the ordinance. The three-man Rio Arriba County Commission passed the ordinance unanimously […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A bridge to disaster?
There’s a traffic jam in West Yellowstone, Mont., and the Gallatin National Forest wants to do something about it. Snowmobilers who buzz across Cougar Creek on a crowded highway bridge need an alternative route, says the agency, because they’re creating a safety problem for themselves and other drivers. But environmentalists contend that an agency plan […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
The Wayward West
Poet Gary Snyder won’t be talking to prospective foresters at Oregon State University’s School of Forestry. Because his talk was scheduled to occur just before election day – when Oregonians will vote on a clear-cutting ban – forestry dean George Brown canceled Snyder’s visit (HCN, 9/14/98). “I did not want to put Gary … in […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
An activist dies in the forest
Logging spokesmen say the death of an Earth First! activist should serve to get protesters out of the woods; Earth First! says: Not a chance. David Chain, 24, of Austin, Texas, was killed when he was struck in the head by a falling tree Sept. 17. He’d been trying to stop logging on land owned […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A familiar name returns to Western politics
Some say the West has its own version of the Kennedy clan – the Udalls. A generation of Westerners has heard of Morris Udall, the former Arizona congressman, and Stewart, his brother, former secretary of the Interior. These days it’s their sons who are in the news. Morris’ son Mark, now a Colorado state legislator, […]