Will taxpayers foot the bill on a federally subsidized fossil?
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Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Dam’s price tag skyrockets
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Water ‘holy war’ rages in central Utah.” After decades of rancorous debate, construction is under way on the Animas-La Plata dam project in dusty southwestern Colorado (HCN, 8/27/01: A-LP gets federal A-OK). But anyone who thought the […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Seattle embarks on a dramatic experiment in restoration
Ecologists try to make second-growth forests function like vanishing old growth
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Dear Friends
Visitors Spring weather has brought a stream of friends and luminaries to the High Country News office in western Colorado. Lyman Orton spent an afternoon with us. He and his sons own the Vermont Country Store, famous for its old-timey black-and-white catalogs, featuring everything from rubber galoshes to cheddar cheese. The store now puts out […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Filmmakers Filmmakers Dru Carr and Doug Hawes-Davis: Documenting the Evolving West
MISSOULA, MONTANA — Filmmaking isn’t about big budgets, explosions or special effects for Dru Carr and Doug Hawes-Davis, the only full-time employees at the Missoula, Mont.-based High Plains Films. Instead, it’s the tool they use to document — and, they hope, protect — the ever-evolving West. In the early ’90s, Carr and Hawes-Davis were students […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
The common beauty of a spring day
In the afternoon, they drove side by side, three abreast in the big Ford, and watched the land. When they came to a small rise on a gravel road between nowhere and nowhere, they slowed to a stop and lowered the windows. They sat there like they might be sitting their horses, or at a […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA If Arnold Schwarzenegger has his way, gas-powered cars will be terminated in 10-15 years. The media-savvy governor recently drove a hydrogen-powered Toyota to a press conference in Davis, where he championed hydrogen as a replacement for gasoline, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Schwarzenegger, who has played an unstoppable robot from the future, predicted the […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Off-road vehicles are chewing up our public lands
It’s hard to find anybody these days who’d even try to argue that off-road vehicles don’t damage public lands throughout the West. The U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded in 1999 that “with an increase of off-highway vehicle traffic, i.e., motorcycles, four-wheel drive vehicles, all-terrain vehicles, the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service have observed […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Motorized recreation belongs in the backcountry
I’ve had motorcycles in some form, on-or-off-road, since I was 11 years old. That’s how I went fishing or just exploring, dodging logging trucks as I gallivanted through the Flathead National Forest in Montana. It was, and still is, great fun; try it sometime. That’s not to say that there aren’t problems with motorized recreation. […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Rednecks and hippies unite!
In my town, you’re either a redneck or a hippie. It’s a wildly simplistic view of the world, but for some residents, it’s reality. Rednecks are folks who can claim, “My great-granddad chased the Utes out of this valley” — or who drive pickup trucks, drink Budweiser and vote Republican. Hippies are the folks who […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Shooting Spree
The Bush administration is perforating our basic environmental laws. Can a cadre of seasoned green lawyers stop it?
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Songs in the key of life
Earthjustice is best-known for the free legal services it provides for environmental causes. But its lawyers know how to pick songs as well as witnesses, as the organization’s recently released CD shows. Titled Where We Live, proceeds from the album benefit a campaign for “the universal right to clean air and clean water” that includes […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Calendar
New Mexico-based Quivera Coalition has scheduled its 2004 workshops. The workshops will be held throughout the state and include topics such as “Upland and Riparian Management for a New Rancher” and “Water from Roads Less Traveled: How to design and maintain low maintenance ranch roads.” 505-820-2544 projects@quiveracoalition.org. The Pikes Peak Library District’s Special Collections is […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Making rivers work
The problem with books about Western water history is that — being books about how we’ve dammed, diverted and even reversed the flow of rivers all over the West — they’re full of bad ideas. Every once in awhile, though, somebody dares to offer some better ideas for the future. Sandra Postel and Brian Richter […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Indian water giveaway
Daniel Kraker’s assertion in “The New Water Czars” that Indian tribes lease their water for more than $1,000 an acre-foot is inaccurate (HCN, 3/15/04: The New Water Czars). Yes, Del Webb Corporation leased 10,000 acre-feet of water from the Ak-Chin for $12 million — but it was a one-time, up-front payment for 100 years’ worth […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Don’t apologize for Bush
I strongly disagree with Jon Margolis’ apology for George Bush (HCN, 3/29/04: Bush is a man of his word: He’s audacious, but should that be surprising?). There used to be qualities such as decency, broad-mindedness and vision in our leaders. Having won the presidency with less votes than his opponent, only because of the quirky […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Environment is a political issue
Why is it that the environment is almost a taboo subject in American political campaigns? Voters need to know the candidate’s stand on environmental issues! You can bet we will learn a candidate’s stand on same-sex marriage, but not their stand or views on the amount of toxic pollution power plants emit into our air. […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Jetboats stir up the Frank
IDAHO A new Forest Service management plan for the 2.4 million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness could increase jetboat traffic, and would allow airplanes continued access to four controversial landing strips. Jetboats and airstrips normally aren’t allowed in wilderness areas, but the 1980 act that established “the Frank” allowed those uses to continue there. […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Conservation easements don’t make the grade
Your recent article, “Who Will Take Over The Ranch,” turned out to be a big disappointment (HCN, 3/29/04: Who will take over the ranch?). The term “conservation easement” borders on being an oxymoron. In the entire article I failed to find anything that actually indicated such an easement had anything to do with conservation. Livestock […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Caveats on easements
The article by Jon Christensen about conservation easements was very interesting, but failed to mention a few important points about easements (HCN, 3/29/04: Who will take over the ranch?). One, conservation easements are made in perpetuity. Forever is a long time. If you need a heart transplant in 10 years, or college tuition for the […]