A homegrown consensus effort called the Owyhee Initiative
is trying to save both wilderness and ranching in southwestern
Idaho – but in the polarized Bush era, consensus is often
controversial
Magazine

December 8, 2003
A homegrown consensus effort called the Owyhee Initiative is trying to save both wilderness and ranching in southwestern Idaho – but in the polarized Bush era, consensus is often controversial. Also in this issue: Federal wildlife managers admit that the massive fish kill in the Klamath River in 2002 was caused, in part, by the diversion of water to farmers.
Feature
Sidebar
A compromise brewed by Republican Rep. Mike Simpson would
designate wilderness in the Boulder Mountains and White Cloud Peaks
of Idaho
When Idaho salmon advocates challenged the state’s
farm-irrigation system, Norm Semanko held them off by taking a
couple of wilderness deals hostage
Editor's Note
Even though it’s true that without the radical
extremes, there would be no middle ground, to save wilderness in
the Bush era, environmental hard-liners need to ease up on
consensus deals
Essays
Now that she’s left Las Vegas, the writer recalls
the surrealistic city, and is haunted by the memory of the desert
that surrounds it
Book Reviews
Bruce Gordon started his nonprofit EcoFlight in Aspen,
Colo., to take kids out of the classroom and let them see
environmental issues from above, in his Cessna 210
Environmental scientist James Gore warns that the water
that coalbed methane wells pours into streams could wipe out up to
30 aquatic species in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and
Montana
In Built for Speed: A Year in the Life of
Pronghorn, zoology professor John Byers offers a glimpse
into the life of North America’s fastest mammal
Writers on the Range
The Rocky Mountain Front in Montana is precious land, and
it is under threat from the Bush administration’s predatory
energy policy
Robert Struckman confesses he's a knee jerk local who's
trying to get over it
Heard Around the West
Circumcised elk; grizzly bear highway deaths; recycling
fraud in California; money talks at Copper Mountain; newspaper
bloopers; crime waves in Cortez, Colo
Dear Friends
HCN’s upcoming Holiday Open House; Toby Harshaw,
John Singlaub, and Rea Orthner visit; Congratulations to Dick
Carter and Deb French; and corrections and comments
News
Federal wildlife managers admit that the massive fish kill
in the Klamath River in 2002 was caused, in part, by the diversion
of water to farmers
$11 million is set aside for a nuclear trigger factory
that Carlsbad, N.M., is hoping to host; Yucca Mountain, Nev., gets
$580 million for nuclear waste storage; no extra water for the Rio
Grande silvery minnow; Pentagon wins exemptions to environmental
l
The energy bill is stalled for now as Congress wraps up
its business for the year, but a lot of anti-environmental
legislation has been passed in an end-of-season rush
In the face of noisy opposition, Envirocare of Utah pulls
its federal application to dump high-level radioactive waste in the
desert
The House and Senate pass the Healthy Forests Restoration
Act, which environmentalists fear will do the opposite of its
name
Congress sets aside money for new nuclear weapons research
and tells the Nevada Test Site to get ready for nuclear
weapons-testing
Letters
- Was Yellowstone’s deadliest wolf hunt in 100 years an inside job?
- Scientists unravel the origins of the Southwest’s monsoon
- Alaska’s Willow Project promises huge amounts of oil — and huge environmental impacts
- The fires below
- The White Sands discovery only confirms what Indigenous people have said all along
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