Magazine
May 16, 2005
Despite angry environmentalists, rotting timber, and unenthusiastic logging companies, the Bush administration is determined to push logging on roadless land burned by the Biscuit Fire in southwestern Oregon. Also in this issue: The House of Representatives has just passed an energy bill that is even more outrageously friendly to industry than the Bush administration had requested.
Feature
Despite angry environmentalists, rotting timber, and
unenthusiastic logging companies, the Bush administration is
determined to push logging on roadless land burned by the Biscuit
Fire in southwestern Oregon
Editor's Note
If the folks who run the Forest Service listened to the
wisdom of their people on the ground, disasters like the Biscuit
Fire logging project would be less likely to occur
Uncommon Westerners
Kat Brigham of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla has
devoted her life to fighting for tribal fishing rights and the
survival of salmon on the Columbia River
Essays
If the United States doesn’t come up with an intelligent energy strategy, global warming could spell the end of the ski industry
It took a while, but the writer eventually came to see the strange, harsh beauty of the gnarled old pinon and juniper trees in Canyon Country
Dear Friends
Jason Nicholoff is HCN’s new
development associate; visitors; Jacob Smith elected to Golden,
Colo., city council; notes from readers; condolences on the deaths
of Dennis Machida and Mary Dann; and goodbye to Torrey,
Jodi’s dog
News
The House of Representatives passes an energy bill with even more industrial pork than the Bush administration requested.
Ag Secretary Mike Johanns says his agency may relax ban on
slaughtering "downer" cows for human consumption; California sets
official, but nonbinding, goals for perchlorate in drinking water;
San Juan Generating Station to cut mercury and other
emissions
A Canadian mining company, the Fremont Gold Corporation,
plans to dig 200 test pits for a possible mining operation five
miles from the South Pass National Historic Landmark in Wyoming,
where wagon trains once traveled
Wayne Shifflett, former manager of the Buenos Aires National
Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona, was charged with illegally
moving a small population of imperiled Chiricahua leopard frog
tadpoles, in order to save their lives when drought threatened
their habitat.
In Utah, an "omnibus" public-lands bill may create several
new wilderness areas near Zion National Park, but at the same time
authorize the auction of federal lands for development
A wet winter postpones the declaration of a shortage on
the Colorado River as the Upper and Lower Basin states continue to
squabble over long-strategy for dealing with the region's
droughts
The Forests and Fish plan was supposed to help both salmon
and the timber industry in Washington State, but clauses in the
agreement may tilt it against wildlife
Some say that Washington’s Forests and Fish rules
could be so hard on small timber farms that the owners are likely
to sell out to development, to the detriment of salmon and other
wildlife
Book Reviews
In With a Measure of Grace: The Story and Recipes
of a Small Town Restaurant, Blake Spalding and Jennifer
Castle tell how they ended up running the Hell’s Backbone
Grill in the remote community of Boulder, Utah
In The Deep Dark, Gregg Olsen tells the
tragic story of the 1972 fire in the Sunshine Mine in Idaho’s
Silver Valley, which took the lives of 91 men
The Guaymas Chronicles by archaeologist
David E. Stuart is a funny and touching memoir of the time he spent
in Mexico in the early 1970s
In Alambrista and the U.S.-Mexico
Border, editors Nicholas J. Cull and David Carrasco
describe the making of the 1977 movie Alambrista, which explored
the lives of undocumented migrant workers
In The Hayduke Trail, Joe Mitchell and Mike Coronella give you all the information – and motivation – you’ll need to set off on foot into the Canyon Country
Heard Around the West
Miraculous Colorado chickens; Bob Meinecke’s outdoor
memories; Ann Coulter vs. Pima County; Benedictines seek brewery;
too many "welfare eagles" in Homer, Alaska
Letters
Related Stories
Forest Service insiders say President Bush’s Council
on Environmental Quality has added new corporate-style rules to the
agency’s forest-planning program
- John W Stephens on Latest: California fracking companies inject protected aquifers with wastewater
- Kent Schoberle on Ranch Diaries: A New Mexico cattle company is born
- Rich & Terry Fairbanks on Rural communities in the West need a fair shake
- on Jim Deacon, pioneering desert fish biologist, dies
- Larry Bullock on Ranch Diaries: A New Mexico cattle company is born
