Three Idaho Supreme Court decisions the first week in
April reaffirmed the right of an anti-grazing group to bid on state
grazing leases (HCN, 12/21/98). A week later, the Idaho Watersheds
Project won a federal court decision that pulled grazing permits
from 1 million acres of BLM grazing lands in Idaho. The group’s Jon
Marvel says the rulings pound “one more nail in the coffin of
public-lands ranching.”
If Gary Boyce and his
Stockmen’s Water Co. go ahead with plans to export water from
Colorado’s San Luis Valley, state Attorney General Ken Salazar says
the company won’t necessarily get its way (HCN, 10/26/98). “They
can expect we are going to fight (them) with all the resources that
we have within the attorney general’s office,” Salazar told The
Denver Post. The company has reportedly floated proposals to sell
water to cities on Colorado’s Front Range and in New
Mexico.
Now that the hubbub of Idaho’s last
legislative session has quieted down, the Idaho Department of Fish
and Game is trying to get its house in order (HCN, 3/15/99).
Legislation that would have pulled the department’s authority to
run the state’s endangered species program was voted down, along
with a request to hike hunting and fishing license fees. “We can
get by one more year without (making) any serious cutbacks,” the
department’s acting director, Jerry Mallet, told the AP. “If we
don’t get a fee increase during the next legislature, that’s when
we’ll need to make some serious adjustments.”
The state of Montana corralled about 60 bison
caught wandering just outside Yellowstone National Park on April
15, then arrested five protesters from the Buffalo Field Campaign
who interfered (HCN, 2/15/99). Bison testing positive will be
killed, and the rest of the animals will be set free. The Montana
Department of Livestock has captured 100 bison over the winter and
killed 27, reports the Billings Gazette.
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Dustin Solberg
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
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