Wyoming’s Green Mountain Common Allotment is one of
the West’s last big, wide-open landscapes – but these
days, ranchers, environmentalists, history buffs and the BLM are
arguing over whether it’s time to start putting up
fences
Magazine

March 1, 2004
Wyoming’s Green Mountain Common Allotment is one of the West’s last big, wide-open landscapes – but these days, ranchers, environmentalists, history buffs and the BLM are arguing over whether it’s time to start putting up fences. Also in this issue: Nearly a decade after Imperial Valley irrigators fought off a water grab by Texans Ed and Lee Bass, the Imperial Valley Irrigation District buys the old Bass property, Western Farms, and the water rights that come with it.
Feature
Sidebar
As the West grows and develops, more people find
themselves drawn into the conflict over open-range laws
Editor's Note
Former Interior Secretary James Watt still sees himself as
a victim of environmental "selfish interest groups," conveniently
forgetting that he fought against popular conservation laws on
behalf of powerful corporations
Uncommon Westerners
Ramon Ramirez of PCUN, the Northwestern Treeplanters and
Farmworkers United, fights on behalf of the rights of immigrants,
at home in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and across the
globe
Essays
The author’s family likes to think that his
great-grandfather has come back as a crow after a lifetime spent
shooting the rambunctious birds
Book Reviews
"Snow Country Memories: Interned in North Dakota," a new
exhibit at the North Dakota Museum of Art, brings to life the World
War II-era Fort Lincoln Internment Camp and the people who lived
there, like poet Itaru Ina
Best Essays NW gathers a collection of Oregon Quarterly
essays, most of them written by unknown writers who look at the
Northwest from a unique perspective
The Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition grades Western ski
areas in its Environmental Scorecard, and the average grade is
pretty average
Writers on the Range
The defeat of Oregon’s Measure 30 by anti-tax
zealots shows that voters angry at state and local governments are
going after the wrong enemy
Heard Around the West
Nevada’s getting big; urbanite hunters and the NRA;
knapweed-sniffing dog; His Royal Highness goes skiing in Jackson
Hole; blatant bellybuttons at BYU; Astrolawn in California;
reindeer meat
Dear Friends
Arjun Tadini Bacigalupi is born; HCN’s February
board meeting & our new business plan; board members Mark
Gordon and Terry Janis step down; new board members Annette Aguayo
and John Heyneman; Gary Paul Nabhan on desert agriculture; and
familiar faces Geof
News
Nearly a decade after Imperial Valley irrigators fought
off a water grab by Texans Ed and Lee Bass, the Imperial Valley
Irrigation District buys the old Bass property, Western Farms, and
the water rights that come with it
Federal judges fight over snowmobiles in Yellowstone;
Kennewick Man is scientific data, not sacred remains; Arlo Looking
Glass convicted in murder of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash; and Union of
Concerned Scientists says Bush administration systematically
abuses
In California, the Forest Service abandons the
collaborative Sierra Nevada Framework in favor of a new management
plan that cuts big trees
Critics say the Yavapai Ranch Land Exchange in Arizona is
a sweetheart deal between developer Fred Ruskin and the Forest
Service
Plans for oil, gas and coalbed methane development in
northern New Mexico’s Valle Vidal have aroused the opposition
of environmentalists, ranchers, hunters, and the Boy
Scouts
Letters
- Was Yellowstone’s deadliest wolf hunt in 100 years an inside job?
- Botanists find one of ‘the world’s worst weeds’ spreading in the Boise foothills
- Alaska’s Willow Project promises huge amounts of oil — and huge environmental impacts
- Scientists unravel the origins of the Southwest’s monsoon
- The fires below
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