Magazine
Backlash

September 2, 2002

As a new boom in coalbed methane gas drilling hits the West, some counties are taking on industry-friendly state regulating agencies and demanding that gas companies listen to local concerns. Also in this issue: EPA chief Christie Whitman and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig dipped champagne glasses in Idaho's Lake Coeur d'Alene and toasted the newly-created commission tasked with cleaning up mining waste in the lake. But the Coeur d'Alene Tribe wants the problem to be taken seriously.

Feature

Backlash
In Gallatin County, Mont., and Delta County, Colo., local citizens and county governments are fiercely resisting the recent, no-holds-barred push to drill for coalbed methane.
Ray Ring Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition

Sidebar

One Colorado county takes a stand
Poor but coal-rich Delta County, Colo., made history when its county commissioners, responding to a determined citizens' movement, voted to deny four coalbed methane test wells and attach conditions to the drilling of a fifth.
Robyn Morrison Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition

Essays

When nature calls, don't follow your instincts
For environmental as well as aesthetic reasons, parks like Grand Teton in Wyoming are doing away with wilderness outhouses, and requesting hikers to use "poop bags" to pack out human waste.
Jon Waldman Essay Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition

Perspective

Bush's energy push meets unintended consequences
The Bush administrations' push to drill and drill yet more in the West is likely to have surprising consequences, arousing even some Republicans to protest.
Jon Margolis Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition

Book Reviews

An inspiring, devastating story
Land, Wind and Hard Words: A Story of Navajo Activism by John W. Sherry tells the story of the Navajo grassroots environmental group Dine CARE and the dedicated small group of people who founded it, 10 years ago.
Michelle Nijhuis Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
River's end
The Culminating Conference for the year-long series, Moving Waters: The Colorado River and the West, is set for four days in September in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Lolly Merrell Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Telling it on the mountain
As part of the United Nations' 2002: The Year of the Mountains proclamation, a program on the problems facing mountain peoples will be held in Silverton, Colo., Sept. 26-28.
Lolly Merrell Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
No shoes, no problem
In Barefoot Hearted: A Wild Life with Wildlife, Kathleen Meyer relates her adventures in Montana's Bitterroot Valley, where she shares an old dairy barn with her boyfriend and numerous uninvited animal guests.
Bert Lindler Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
The fission of a New Mexican nuclear family
Bradford Morrow's novel, Ariel's Crossing, tells a poignant story of family and reconciliation in New Mexico, where the nuclear weapons testing of 40 years ago still haunts the land and the people.
Stephen J. Lyons Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Is it possible ...
Outdoor Classroom on Rangeland Health
staff Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
If you're tired ...
Sopris Foundation's Web site
staff Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Visit awhile with Molly ...
Western Colorado Congress
staff Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition

Writers on the Range

A NIMBY and proud of it
The term "NIMBY" is used as a term of abuse, but the writer says that when it comes to things like coalbed methane drilling on Colorado's Western Slope, he is eager and proud to declare: NOT IN MY BACKYARD.
Paolo Bacigalupi Opinion Essay Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition

Heard Around the West

Heard Around the West
Mini-ranch sold on eBay; smashed toilets become office foundation; Aspen man blown away by job requirements; "Russian Mafia" robbing Idaho hikers; meth addicts stealing old-growth trees; Water Board plans cloud-seeding; and grasshopper plague.
Betsy Marston Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition

Dear Friends

Breaking all the rules
Breaking all the rules, HCN writes about local coalbed methane story; Visitors; interesting mail about enviro "psychohistory"; no Centennial Hotel in Elko; HCN goes to Seattle for board meeting, potluck
Greg Hanscom Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Farewell to a great mountain photographer
Mountain photographers Galen and Barbara Rowell die in a California plane crash.
staff Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition

News

EPA puts cleanup in local hands
The planned Superfund cleanup of Idaho's Lake Coeur d'Alene is taken from the EPA and given to a controversial new local commission, although the Coeur d'Alene Tribe says it will force the EPA to take back the project, if necessary.
Kevin Taylor Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
The Latest Bounce
180 lynx to be released in Colorado; stricter noise rules in Grand Canyon; Bureau of Indian Affairs to create federal Indian Energy and Minerals office; bark beetles hit Arizona pinon pines.
Matt Jenkins Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Closing the loop
On the Navajo Reservation, Indigenous Community Enterprises is using thinned small trees from fire-prone, overgrown forests to build hogans for housing - and the tribal economy as well.
James Bishop Jr. Essay Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
The other firefighters
Fire-proofing houses is a thriving new business in Durango, Colorado's fire-prone forests, but the only real solution to the problem is to quit building in the urban-wildland interface, many say.
Bryan Foster Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition

Letters

Cross lawsuit is not petty
Eliot Kalman Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Great Basin belongs to all of us
Dennis Brownridge Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Defenders defends wolves
Suzanne Laverty Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Forest thinning urgent
Steve Tohari Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Forward from the Pleistocene
Craig H. Jones Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
Golden in drought denial
Bruce Feinberg Sept. 2, 2002 From the print edition
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