Twilight settles around the cabin a few miles outside of Flagstaff, Ariz., where Mary Sojourner lives with her seven cats, her wood stove and the tools of her trade – a new Mac Performa computer, a laser color printer, a telephone and fax machine. Sojourner – her chosen name – makes her living from writing. […]
News
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Glacier’s road is going to the dogs
WEST GLACIER, Mont. – The first director of the National Park Service, Stephen T. Mather, saw the Going-to-the-Sun road as a way to hold Glacier National Park together. Mather proposed building the road in the early 1920s to lure a “great flow of tourist gold” to remote northern Montana, and to convince miners and loggers […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Begging bears are back in Idaho
REXBURG, Idaho – A cinnamon-colored bear ambles over to the green GMC camper truck, sniffs the tires and stands up on his hind legs. The 400-pound predator paws at the hood and laps at the bug-spattered windshield, behind which sits a giddy young family of four packed on the truck’s bench seat. They’re not in […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Judges get FREE lessons on property rights
The Montana resorts around Yellowstone National Park are a long way from Washington, D.C., Cleveland, or even Denver, and that, as much as a thirst for knowledge, may be what has attracted about 180 federal judges since 1992 to seminars on property rights and environmental issues. These aren’t just any federal judges. These are the […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
A timber town rallies for roads
CASCADE, Idaho – The open-air protest was hastily organized, but Idaho Republican Rep. Helen Chenoweth found time to travel to this timber town of 900. “You’re the best environmentalists in the world,” she told 500 cheering people who had gathered to close the road through town with logging trucks and send a message to the […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Tribe seeks its key peak
Tohono O’odham Indians have long gazed up at the soaring tower of Baboquivari Peak, southwest of Tucson, Ariz., with mingled reverence and consternation. They have never accepted a 1917 boundary survey that placed the east side of the tribe’s most sacred mountain on federal land, outside their main reservation. Now, the tribe hopes the dispute […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
The Wayward West
In early June, GOP leaders in the House promised to end logging subsidies for the timber industry, agreeing with the Clinton administration that “road credits’ should die. Soon after, the Forest Service, for the second time in its history, posted a number for what its road-building program really lost last year: $88 million. Jet-boat enthusiasts […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
More internal fire at the Forest Service
NEW MEXICO More internal fire at the Forest Service The list of resignations in the Forest Service’s Southwest region is growing (HCN, 3/30/98). Renee Galeano-Popp, a career agency biologist, stepped down from her position at Lincoln National Forest in late April, saying in a letter to the incoming regional forester that “the Forest Service has […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Rancher stonewalls an agency
The condition of a grazing allotment in southern Wyoming is at the center of a dispute between the National Wildlife Federation and the Bureau of Land Management. The wildlife group’s attorney, Tom Lustig, is protesting the agency’s temporary extension of a grazing permit to rancher Wright Dickenson. Lustig says the impact of 1,000 cows on […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Trees and children win
How much are 30,000 acres of forest worth? Washington conservation groups and the state’s Department of Natural Resources are about to find out. On April 8, the two sides settled a trio of lawsuits over the Loomis State Forest in north-central Washington by agreeing to let the conservation groups pay to remove a chunk of […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Judge disciplines L-P
Judge disciplines L-P At a criminal trial last month in Denver, a federal judge fined the Louisiana-Pacific Corp. a record $37 million for breaking environmental laws at its Olathe, Colo., waferboard plant and for selling a product whose quality didn’t meet the company’s claims. The fine is the latest chapter in the plant’s stormy history. […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Forest blowdown causes storm
The Forest Service is preparing to log nearly 3,000 acres of an October spruce and fir blowdown in Colorado’s Routt National Forest (HCN, 11/24/97). The risk of wildfire and the potential for a spruce beetle outbreak in the blowdown make the North Fork salvage sale an “emergency situation,” the regional forester says – one that […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Locals stand behind an aging dam
For years, irrigators who benefit from the Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue River in southern Oregon have resisted removal of the salmon-blocking structure. In the past, when the district’s board members agreed to removal, local voters removed those members. Now, irrigators have won another reprieve from federal and state pressure, thanks to a court […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
All’s not Swell
In a surprise move, Utah Rep. Chris Cannon, R, says he wants to see more wilderness in the San Rafael Swell of southern Utah, and he’s written a new bill to prove it. Cannon’s bill would designate as wilderness about 400,000 acres of BLM land in the San Rafael Swell, and it would also set […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Most favor the grizzly
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued a summary of 24,000 public comments on its plan to bring back grizzly bears to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho and Montana. Of the 21,000 responses that were petition signatures, 77 percent favored reintroduction, while 23 percent opposed it. The summary drew criticism from Alliance for the […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
The Wayward West
Politicians in Idaho are talking about doing away with four Snake River dams (HCN, 9/1/97). Robert Huntley, Democratic candidate for governor, called the lower dams “impediments to prosperity,” reports the Idaho Statesman, while a Republican running against Rep. Helen Chenoweth in the primary said his party had to protect endangered species. “Letting species go extinct, […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Locals battle military planes
In southern Colorado’s isolated Wet Mountain Valley, a former county commissioner is hoping nearly eight years of effort will keep the area free from more low-flying military planes. “If we’re concerned about our peace and quiet, our lifestyle, our agricultural community and our wildlife, then we’d better stand up and let the military know,” says […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
‘Odd couple’ sues over grazing permits
Although Jon Tate of the Tucson, Ariz.-based Western Gamebird Association wants to get cows off some Arizona grazing allotments, he’s not talking about endangered species or water quality. “The reason we want to save this land is there’s a bunch of little birds there that we want to shoot for fun,” he told the Albuquerque […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Biologists get the ax
Seven biologists are on the endangered list after a budget cut at New Mexico’s state wildlife agency. In April, Republican Gov. Gary Johnson vetoed $620,000 in state and federal matching funds for the state’s management of all nongame wildlife. The funds were earmarked for staff positions in environmental education and endangered species protection. “Our intent […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Feds sue a Utah county for building a road in a national park
Garfield County in Utah has yet to prove historical use of the Burr Trail road through Capitol Reef National Park, a federal judge said in April. With the ruling, U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins rejected the county’s motion for summary judgment, and now a trial will likely begin this summer. An attorney defending Garfield County […]