Black-tailed prairie dogs may have no place to go as
bulldozers threaten their colonies on Colorado’s sprawling Front
Range. The South Plains Land Trust tried to create a preserve in
Baca County for refugee prairie dogs last year, but ranchers there
succeeded in getting a law on the books that outlaws the altruistic
gesture (HCN, 2/1/99). Now, county commissioners have veto power
over any proposed relocations. Says Susan Miller of the land trust:
“We’re going to lose a lot of prairie dog colonies.”
The Fort Belknap Community Council of Montana
has drawn up a $120 million reclamation plan for the bankrupt
Zortman and Landusky gold mines (HCN,12/22/97). It’s a more
thorough plan than the one already approved by state and federal
agencies, but at quadruple the price. William Main of the Fort
Belknap Community Council told the AP, “The people of Fort Belknap
have struggled and fought with mining corporations for 20 years.”
Police in Santa Fe detonated a deadly pipe bomb
that was left in the mailbox at the Forest Guardians office last
month. Days later, a right-wing group calling themselves the
“Minutemen” mailed a threatening note that claimed responsibility
for the bomb. Forest Guardians’ president, Sam Hitt, told the Santa
Fe New Mexican the threats are taking a psychological toll on the
group’s staff. But Hitt added, “We work within the system and we
work for the public interest, and we plan to continue.”
Two attempts to block the controversial
Initiative 137, which banned new cyanide gold mines in Montana,
have failed in the state legislature (HCN, 3/15/99). Legislators
had tried to give counties the option of approving a local
ordinance to allow new mines and also to put the measure back on
the ballot in 2000, the Billings Gazette reports. “If you vote in
favor of this, you’re saying the people didn’t know what they were
doing,” said Rep. Bob Rainy, D, of Livingston. “People will not
respect you for doing that.”
A federal judge
told Yellowstone National Park that it broke the law when it signed
a bioprospecting deal with a California company interested in hot
springs microbes (HCN, 3/30/98). The park never allowed the public
to comment on the plan, and when watchdogs asked to see the
financial details, they were turned down. “The best disinfectant is
sunshine and we need to shine some light on this agreement to are
just what the Park Service is up to,” activist Phil Knight told the
Billings Gazette.
* Dustin Solberg and Patricia
Walsh
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
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