Former Park Service employees say headquarters is hiding budget woes
Departments
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Commemorate or celebrate?
Last week, as I finished pulling together the essays on Lewis and Clark for this issue of the paper, a press release crossed my desk from the National Council for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. “Not Semantics: Commemorate vs. Celebrate,” read the headline. The release quoted council vice president Roberta Conner, an enrolled member of […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Lewis and Clark: Just another cog in the wheel of history
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The living, breathing natives who made Lewis and Clark.” If American history west of the Mississippi “begins” with Lewis and Clark, then Indian history and, by extension, the history of the United States seems pretty simple: “Indians owned the West, and then they lost […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Park police chief canned for candidness
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “National parks pinching pennies.” U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers didn’t know what to expect when she reported to the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Park Service Deputy Director Don Murphy, on Dec. 5, 2003. “I had […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Bicentennial bash is more than a party for tribes
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The living, breathing natives who made Lewis and Clark.” Four years ago, the late historian Steven Ambrose took his rawhide-tassel jacket on a lecture swing through the Western states, warning of “crowds beyond any of our imagining” when the bicentennial of the 1804 Lewis […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Truce holds on the Platte River
Environmentalists and farmers take a leap of faith for the sake of staying out of the courtroom
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
We are the story, this time
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The living, breathing natives who made Lewis and Clark.” I was barefoot, wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, as I walked to the hotel lobby to buy a candy bar. I thought my work as a journalist was done, and I was looking forward […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Court says Yucca Mountain design unsafe
The site’s 10,000-year safety standard is ruled arbitrary, but the Energy Department is undeterred
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Tribes turn out to vote
Indians could decide tight races in key Western states
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
A new twist on urbanism
Few people would connect “New Urbanism” — dense, mixed-use buildings and public transit in pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods — with the Latino barrios of Western cities. One Southern California-based group, however, sees this planning movement and Latino culture as nothing but simpatico. The Transportation and Land Use Collaborative has organized an annual conference and a series of […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
An antidote to despair
Chip Ward’s first book, Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West, was decidedly grim, detailing his fight to keep the deserts of Utah from becoming a dump for toxins ranging from radioactive waste to defunct biochemical weapons. His new book, Hope’s Horizon, gives us a brighter view of recent environmental battles, taking an […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Can’t afford a home? Get out of the city
Oh, come on, Mark Matthews. As I started your Writers on the Range article “I’ve tried, but I can’t eat the view” (HCN, 6/7/04: I’ve tried, but I can’t eat the view), I expected an analysis of Tom Power’s anthem on how we make worthy sacrifices to live in the great West, trading some monetary […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Follow-up
For the first time since 1993, the Bureau of Land Management has revised its fees for mining claims (HCN, 3/8/93: Mining reform may hit paydirt in 1993). Now, to mine or drill a claim on BLM land, users will have to pay a $30 one-time claim fee, plus $125 per year — unless they’re “small […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Grassroots wilderness movement is alive in Oregon
In a recent letter to the editor, Felice Pace argues that there are no true grassroots campaigns to preserve wilderness in the Western United States today (HCN, 6/21/04: What grassroots wilderness movement?). That would come as a surprise to the 900 people who appeared recently at three forums in Oregon to support new wilderness protections […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Locals drive Arizona campaign
I am responding to Felice Pace’s letter, in which he portrays the Arizona campaign to designate wilderness in the Tumacacori Highlands as the brainchild of the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the grassroots activists as Pew’s pawns (HCN, 6/21/04: What grassroots wilderness movement?). That perception couldn’t be further from the truth. The decision to promote the […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Wilderness movement adapts to political landscape
Felice Pace’s assertion that there is no grassroots wilderness movement in the West is simply ridiculous (HCN, 6/21/04: What grassroots wilderness movement?). We have a thriving grassroots movement here in Colorado, one that long precedes the assistance of the Pew Charitable Trusts. The support of the foundation did not change our strategy one bit — […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Calendar
The World Renewable Energy Congress and Expo will be held in Denver from Aug. 28 to Sept. 3. Workshops will focus on a wide range of renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, fuel cells, wave energy, biomass and more.303-275-3781 www.nrel.gov/wrec. Oregon State University is sponsoring a class on timber and forestland appraisal, “The […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Dear Friends
A presidential visit Readers Nicki Leniton and Brett Nelson, schoolteachers who live in Carbondale, Colo., came by the High Country News office in mid-July driving a Ford Crown Victoria and towing a 12-foot-tall effigy of George W. Bush. The two are part of a nationwide effort by the nonprofit True Majority (founded by Ben Cohen […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
You can’t plant a prairie
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Greening of the Plains.” Once the sod has been busted, prairie restoration becomes extremely difficult, to say the least. “I always say that you can’t plant a prairie,” says Jim Stubbendieck, a grasslands ecologist and the director of the Center for Great Plains […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Speaking up for rural Oregonians: Judge Laura Pryor
JOHN DAY, Oregon — As hail pounds the concrete outside, more than 200 people cram into an Elks Lodge — replete with wood paneling and a smoky bar in the rear — to see Judge Laura Pryor, the chairwoman of the Gilliam County Commission and one of the rural West’s most outspoken champions. With her […]