Note: This news article accompanies this issue’s feature story about hardrock mining. Thanks to President Clinton, you’ve probably heard of the New World Mine that was to be built near Yellowstone. And you may have heard of the proposed McDonald gold mine on the Blackfoot River near Lincoln, Mont. Thank Norman Maclean and his novel […]
News
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
An 1872 law still calls the shots
WASHINGTON, D.C. – It was a good year. The president was easily re-elected, there was a tight race for the baseball championship, and Congress passed landmark environmental legislation. Some things have changed since then, though. Ulysses Grant is better known for a question about the contents of his tomb than for his accomplishments as president, […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Activists ‘shepherd’ wayward bison
Highway Administration says it’s all or nothing
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Idaho chokes Spokane
Eleven-year old Derek Uphus fears the start of school each year because that’s when local farmers near his Spokane, Wash., home begin burning their fields and fouling the air over the city. He suffers from cystic fibrosis and asthma and when there’s smoke in the air, Uphus coughs constantly. “It’s like someone’s hands are around […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Ancient cedars get a life
Environmentalists have always said that old-growth trees are worth more alive than logged. Recently, the Forest Service seconded that thought. In October, after five years of negotiations, the agency allowed Idaho sawmill owner Mark Brinkmeyer to swap his 530-acre grove of 1,200-year-old trees at the headwaters of Idaho’s Upper Priest Lake for 2,200 acres of […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Salvage law haunts Utah
Salvage law haunts Utah When Forest Supervisor Janette Kaiser announced plans for a huge salvage timber sale on central Utah’s Manti-La Sal National Forest in August, environmentalists thought they’d seen a ghost. The sale was approved under a law they thought long dead: the salvage logging rider. Now, they hope a recent agency decision will […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
The greening of Mount St. Helens
Dick Ford didn’t think it possible. Weyerhaeuser Co.” s timber lands near Mount St. Helens, the volcano that erupted in Washington state 17 years ago, are turning green. “I remember thinking that it would never be a normal forest,” says Ford, who managed Weyerhaeuser’s replanting operations around the volcano through the 1980s. In the months […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Is the Park Service too timid?
When Washington’s Mount Rainier blew its top 5,600 years ago, a massive mud flow buried much of the Puget Sound under hundreds of feet of mud and rock. Today, smaller mudslides from the volcano, called one of the world’s most dangerous, threaten Mount Rainier National Park. In the past decade, slides have destroyed a bridge […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
The Wayward West
The Quincy Library Group Bill is tangled in holiday traffic, after flying through the U.S. House of Representatives last July (HCN, 9/29/97). Sens. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., put holds on the bill, stalling it in the Senate. But proponents like Sen Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., are confident it will move quickly when Congress […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Tribe doesn’t dig it
The remains of an ancient village on the San Xavier District of the Tohono O’odham Reservation in Arizona are going to stay buried. After spending almost $1 million on plans and studies, the tribe’s council has decided not to build a casino on the ruins (HCN, 9/1/97). The decision came after officials from the Sells […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
One dam falls, another rises
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A dam proposed for the Diamond Fork River near Provo, Utah, all but died this October. The Central Utah Water Conservancy District backed off in the face of financial concerns and rising public opposition, pulling the dam from the “preferred alternative” in an environmental impact statement. One of the last […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Saving species: A guide for the perplexed
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Policy is complicated. The goals of policy – a strong economy, peace (or war, depending on circumstances), clean air – are simple. But in a diverse, sometimes disagreeable society with conflicting institutions, a sprawling government and an intricate legal system, achieving those goals requires gobs of … well, process, and process can […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Amax returns with a vengeance
Twenty years ago it was a classic David vs. Goliath battle. Helped by a drop in the worldwide molybdenum market, residents of the ski-resort town of Crested Butte, Colo., chased the world’s largest mining conglomerate out of their valley. But now, Amax is back, locals are crying “blackmail!” and the town council is building a […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Completing a prairie ecosystem
Ranchers say the cost of recovery is exorbitant
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
Tribes create a wilderness park
Buying back part of their original homeland, 11 tribes in California have established the first Native American-owned park, located 200 miles north of San Francisco along the California coast. The 3,900-acre InterTribal Sinkyone (pronounced sinky-own) Wilderness Park will be managed differently than Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, however, because the tribes, including descendants of the […]
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
Our national movie stars
National parks have always played starring roles in Hollywood productions. Sandstone pillars and deep gorges also appear on television and in magazines, selling cars, beer and almost everything in between. But most parks, some of which host an average of 50 productions per year, don’t see a dime from production companies. A 40-year-old rule prohibits […]
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
A ranch rescued
The Nature Conservancy of Utah is spending $4.6 million to save a working ranch from developers. The Dugout Ranch near Canyonlands National Park is now safely in conservancy hands since owner Heidi Redd and conservancy officials closed a deal Oct. 15. “I couldn’t be happier,” said a relieved Redd. “The Nature Conservancy has bent over […]
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
The Wayward West
Three Wisconsin Chippewa tribes wanted to start a casino. Nearby tribes didn’t want the competition. They had given money to the Democratic Party. After the regional office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs endorsed the casino, higher-ups in Washington rejected it. Conflict of interest? Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says no. His old friend and former […]
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
Montana congressman sweetens a buyout
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Mysterious are the labyrinthine hallways of the Capitol; who knows what spirits lurk therein? Down those twisted tunnels and curved corridors are things that go bump in the night. Some of those bumps can vibrate all the way to Montana. One dark, murky night – indeed, it may have been Halloween night […]
Posted inNovember 24, 1997: Restoring a refuge: Cows depart, but can antelope recover?
Freak wind storm flattens 6 million trees
For hundreds of years, the spruce forest in the mountains north of Steamboat Springs, Colo., close to Wyoming, endured everything Mother Nature could throw at it: deep winter snows, severe drought, lightning strikes and gusty winds. But on the night of Oct. 24, the forest got hit by something new: 120-mile-per-hour winds blowing from the […]