Under the “4.4 Plan,” California will begin a water diet, designed to reduce the state’s use of Colorado River water over the next 15 years to the 4.4 million acre-feet it has long been allocated, but always exceeded.
High court weeds out pesticides
OREGON For years, irrigation districts and golf course operators have used pesticides in irrigation canals to battle pesky weeds that choke the flow of water. But a few years ago, an aquatic herbicide in southern Oregon didn’t kill just plants. More than 90,000 young steelhead trout died in 1996 when the chemical acrolein leaked from…
Wolf assassin on the loose
IDAHO A murder mystery case is unfolding near Idaho’s Salmon-Challis National Forest. Over the past two years, nine endangered gray wolves have died there by the poison Compound 1080, according to recently released tests conducted at the National Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Ore. The discovery of all nine wolves occurred after their radio collars began…
Finding home
We were all outside watching the sunset from the casita, which had a high view of the city. From there, the “big picture” was not abstract. It was real, tangible, visible – we could just make out the Burger King sign towering beyond the border fence. The sun was blood red, and then the whole…
Sacred Objects and Sacred Places
“When Col. John M. Chivington and his drunken troops killed Cheyenne Indians in the infamous dawn massacre at Sand Creek, Colo.,” writes Andrew Gulliford in Sacred Objects and Sacred Places, “the troops also cut off their victims’ heads for shipment to Washington, D.C.” There, the severed heads were used in attempts to establish a racial…
Tribal leaders go to school
Freshmen congressmen go to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to learn the ropes. Now, tribal leaders have a comparable resource. This winter, the University of Arizona and the Morris K. Udall Foundation, in conjunction with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, established what could become the premier training center for Indian leaders –…
Hard work in progress
When Dale Shewalter talks about hiking the Arizona Trail, he describes a “sense of elation with what it does for your life.” In the next breath, though, he admits, “I kinda wore out my knees through the years.” Shewalter, who’s long been a fan of long-distance backpacking, started looking for a north-south route across Arizona…
County tax collectors visit public lands
COLORADO For the second time in six years, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that counties can tax ski areas, park concessionaires and others who use public lands for profit. In a 4-3 decision issued Feb. 21, the court found that a 1996 law granting property-tax exemptions to entities with “possessory interests” in public lands…
Mud-boggers get mud in their eye
WYOMING A U.S. magistrate dealt fines to 20 Sheridan, Wyo., four-wheelers for destroying national forest land last June. The incident happened during an annual “Spring Run” across the Bighorn National Forest, says Tongue District Ranger Craig Yancey. “Normally they do it on gravel roads, so it’s not a problem,” says Yancey, “but for some reason…
The Latest Bounce
Over 22,000 communities nationwide may be at risk from summer wildfires, especially those with neighborhoods where houses and forests meet, warns the Boise-based National Interagency Fire Center (HCN, 5/7/01: Back into the woods). All the communities are seeking a portion of the $240 million Congress set aside last year for fire management and fuels reduction.…
Bush administration blinks on roadless rule
Attack on forest protection may backfire
Living off a leaky canal
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. MEXICALI VALLEY, Baja California, Mexico – Just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the All-American Canal courses west from the Colorado River to the farms of California’s Imperial Valley. Most of the clear, fresh water rushes toward the perfect rows of alfalfa, lettuce and carrots…
Will the Met wring the desert dry?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. With California’s Colorado River binge nearing an end, the state is looking for new ways to bring water to its desert cities. The Metropolitan Water District (the Met) has its eye on the sun-scoured Mojave Desert, where a series of underground aquifers lie waiting…
Quenching the big thirst
Will a plan to curb California’s use of the Colorado River hold water?
Heard around the West
Our hearts go out to that beloved icon of the Forest Service, Smokey Bear. Anxiously, perhaps, the big bear awaits his new makeover. Sure, he’ll still be pot-bellied, furry and sport a forest ranger hat. But it’s a safe bet he will no longer deliver the message: “Only you can prevent forest fires.” The spokesbear…
Dear Friends
A-potlucking we go The far-flung board of directors of High Country News will soon gather in Paonia, Colo., for its second meeting of the year. Following an all-day session with staff on Saturday, June 2, the board will host an evening potluck in Paonia’s shady town park on Fourth Street and North Fork Avenue. All…
The sublime delight of backtracking
It’s a Saturday midnight in late September, and David Bertelsen drives his battered car to the northern edge of Tucson, where the newest pseudo-adobes push hard against the Santa Catalina Mountains. He parks off the road, then begins walking up Finger Rock Canyon toward the summit of Mount Kimball. While many hikers try to avoid…
Idaho reaches for control of the ESA
New office seeks to keep species management closer to home
Plutonium in your potatoes?
Idaho discovers traces of radioactive pollution in the Snake River Aquifer