Magazine
October 27, 2003
The West might still be the nation’s outdoor playground, but the Western companies that make outdoor recreation gear are finding greener pastures overseas. Also in this issue: A landmark California water deal has Imperial Valley irrigators finally agreeing to sell Colorado River water to San Diego, without sacrificing the Salton Sea.
Feature
The West might still be the nation’s outdoor
playground, but the Western companies that make outdoor recreation
gear are finding greener pastures overseas
Editor's Note
The West’s small towns have always been subject to
boom-and-bust economies, and even when the coal mines close and the
factories move overseas, new economic engines will likely take
their place
Essays
A sensitive male from Vermont comes face-to-face with
Western violence at the movies
In downtown Portland, Ore., the writer collides with
"Salmon Nation" – a new brand name for a new style of
conservation, or maybe consumerism
Dear Friends
Tom Bell and Louise Murie MacLeod at HCN’s fall
board meeting at Moose, Wyo.; lots of visitors
News
A landmark California water deal has Imperial Valley
irrigators finally agreeing to sell Colorado River water to San
Diego, without sacrificing the Salton Sea
"Socially responsible" investors counsel caution in
coalbed methane development; Western Watersheds Project goes after
Wyoming rancher Frank Robbins; Fish & Wildlife to protect
habitat for threatened bull trout; and environmentalist’s
truck hit by arson i
Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg, R, wants to yank
private lands out of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National
Monument, but some local ranchers fear his bill will just make it
harder for them to sell their property.
Environmentalists and landowners are worried about the use
of hydraulic fracturing to extract coalbed methane, but the
industry – and the EPA – are carefully protecting the
process and its secrets
The Supreme Court refuses to hear arguments against six
national monuments that President Clinton created under the
authority of the 1906 Antiquities Act
The proposed Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits and
Security Act of 2003 would give legal residency to about a
half-million undocumented immigrant farmworkers
Outgoing California Gov. Gray Davis is working with Oregon
Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Washington Gov. Gary Locke on a regionwide
plan for slowing greenhouse gas emissions
In Idaho, a judge rules that Hecla and Asarco are
responsible for pollution in the Silver Valley, but that the two
companies created only half the mine tailings and therefore need
pay for only half the estimated damage costs
Book Reviews
Artificial snowmaking at Colorado ski resorts can lead to
pollution problems when water is taken from rivers contaminated by
heavy metals from mining
From Conquest to Conservation: Our Public Lands Legacy by
Michael P. Dombeck, Christopher A. Wood and Jack E. Williams takes
a hopeful view of the ecological future of the nation’s
public lands
Scientists say that oil and gas drilling is responsible
for creating high levels of smog-forming hydrocarbons in Oklahoma,
Texas, Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado
Heard Around the West
Seabiscuit moves to Colorado; black bear vs. David
Letterman; Hanford’s radioactive wasp nests; Helen Thomas vs.
Brigham Young University; BLM ranger Dick Godwin vs. desert junk
and shot-up appliances
