The Western states are home to a stealth campaign by libertarians who – under the guise of reforming eminent domain – are out to destroy all land-use planning through “takings” ballot initiatives.
Also in this issue: Even as Western states debate the best way to look after their roadless areas, logging, drilling and mining are already happening on some formerly protected lands.
‘I call (regulations) land stealing …’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” During the campaign pitching Oregon’s Measure 37 to voters in 2004, Dorothy English starred in statewide radio ads. Now a 93-year-old widow living on 20 acres on a hillside overlooking Portland, she has been fighting for three decades for permission to slice…
Taking Liberties
The salesmen say ‘yes’ is a vote to stop government from taking your land, but this stealth campaign would do far more than that
Falcon’s future rests on a definition
Endangered aplomado falcons in southern New Mexico may be stripped of their protections — by the very agency trying to bring the bird back to the state. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is moving forward with a controversial plan to release up to 150 captive-bred aplomado falcons as a “nonessential experimental population.” Because the…
Watch the river flow
After 18 years of wallowing in court, farmers and conservationists have reached a settlement that allows water to run again in California’s second-longest river. The Friant Dam, built in the 1940s, irrigates 1 million acres of rich agricultural land in the Central Valley. It also has dried up sections of the San Joaquin River for…
The merry — and meditative — farmer
In Blithe Tomato, California farmer Mike Madison writes about whatever strikes his fancy: neighborhood dogs, old tractors, and what it’s like to tangle with the local gophers for control of his tulips and olive trees. (He admits to losing 25 percent of his net income to the pests.) Madison’s collection of short essays makes it…
A world built on groundwater
The entire West is headed for a much drier future. Ogallala Blue provides a good sense of the bleak realities of a life of scarcity. Author William Ashworth focuses on the Great Plains states, which have for decades thwarted a notorious lack of rain by reaching into the massive Ogallala Aquifer. Today, those states grow…
Dust in the wind
On Sept. 14, 1930, a strange dirt cloud swirled out of Kansas into the Texas Panhandle. Weathermen dismissed it as an oddity, but it marked the beginning of the worst long-term environmental disaster the United States has ever known — the Dust Bowl. That bleak period is chronicled in The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan’s…
HCN: Not just for wackos
I happened upon the March 21, 2005, issue of HCN at my local library’s freebie box, took it home, and enjoyed it. Your approach to environmental issues is fair and well presented. Henceforth, I am taking HCN off my Environmental Wacko list and putting it on my Resource list. Ross B. Yingst Lemitar, New Mexico…
Lunch with a blockhead
I was quite moved by Jeff Golden’s Writers on the Range column suggesting that we invite a blockhead to lunch (HCN, 5/15/06: Isn’t it time to bury the hatchet?). In fact, it inspired me to do just what Mr. Golden suggested: I e-mailed my favorite blockhead and suggested that we act on Mr. Golden’s suggestion.…
The not-so-green saints
The LDS (Mormon) church’s opposition to a nuclear waste storage site near Salt Lake City hardly qualifies them as environmentalists (HCN, 6/26/06: Saints speak out against nuclear waste). This appears to be more a case of NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard). Here we have a religious group that advocates that church members have families…
New Mexico’s greatest shame
I want to thank HCN for the excellent article on the Española Valley’s heroin problem (HCN, 4/03/06: Land of Disenchantment). Ten years ago, I was an archaeologist for the Española District. My survey partner and I would regularly find artifacts of heroin use on forest lands, as well as witness the heroin users themselves stumbling…
The Latest Bounce
New Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne won some friends in the environmental movement in June, when he junked a National Park Service proposal drafted under his predecessor, Gale Norton (HCN, 9/19/05: Revealed — secret changes to park rules). That proposal came under fire from greens, park employees and even some Republican lawmakers for relaxing rules regarding…
SUWA’s on the right track
Jim Stiles claims the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) changed proposed wilderness boundaries in order to accommodate a mountain bike race (HCN, 5/29/06: Clinging hopelessly to the past). His claim is completely false. I was in charge of drawing the boundaries for this part of the Utah Wilderness Coalition’s proposal, and I drew them based…
Kempthorne: foot soldier
As a native Idahoan, there is no doubt in my mind: Former Idaho governor and now Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is purely and simply a foot soldier, a lackey for the money boys (HCN, 6/12/06: Interior’s new secretary — general or foot soldier?). On his watch, the quality of life in Idaho seriously deteriorated. I…
Che Guevara was no saint
I was appalled, even within the context of a book review, to read an uncritical and glowing assessment of Ernesto “Che” Guevara as a “secular saint” whose “ideas of social justice and democracy unite Latinos throughout the Americas” (HCN, 6/26/06: Nuestra America). High Country News has lost my sympathies forever. If all you know of…
Dems contract case of self-delusion — or not
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The D Triple C is not targeting Wyoming, but the netroots are agog over Gary Trauner. What’s that? You need a translation? OK, for those not fluent in politicalese, here goes: The D Triple C, or DCCC, is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, an official arm of the Democratic Party whose raison…
Raul Grijalva relishes a good fight
NAME Raúl M. Grijalva HOMETOWN Tucson, Arizona AGE 58 VOCATION Serving the U.S. House of Representatives for Arizona’s 7th District HE SAYS “The environment is connected entirely to time: The more time you lose or waste, the less protection you have.” Congressman Raúl Grijalva is a different kind of politician. Plain-spoken and refreshingly unguarded, he…
‘I kick myself for being so naive…’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” Ted Schroeder, a doctor, lives on 52 acres in the rural Grande Ronde Valley in northeast Oregon. He voted for Oregon’s Measure 37 and regrets it. A neighboring family, operating as Terra-Magic Inc., has filed a Measure 37 claim, seeking to brush…
Prey at the waterhole
I came around a corner and there was a mountain lion. It was a big male, tail longer than my arm. I stopped in dappled ponderosa shade. I was close enough that I could have tossed a pebble and hit the lion’s tawny block of a head. He was facing the other way, lapping water…
‘It’s clear out of control …’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” Bill Rose runs Rose Agriseeds on 2,100 acres in the Willamette Valley, about 20 miles south of Portland. He breeds specialty grasses for golf courses, and grasses that can be watered with sea water, shipping to customers as far away as Maryland.…
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA What “whiskered blob of blubber” terrorizes swimmers, raids fishing nets and once in a while shoves people off boats? A sea lion is the answer, reports the Los Angeles Times, in its vivid story of a horde of “pit bulls with flippers” muscling their way into Newport Beach for the summer — again. Last…
Takings campaigns around the West
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” ARIZONA Private Property Rights Protection Act, by the Arizona Home Owners Protection Effort (Arizona HOPE) — Initiative 21 Sources of Major $$ Americans for Limited Government, Chicago area, whose chairman of the board is New York City-based real estate mogul Howie Rich…
‘Great recreation value … and great economic value…’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” Newberry National Volcanic Monument, near Bend, Ore., boasts of having an active volcano, more than 50,000 acres of “lava flows and spectacular geologic features,” seven campgrounds, and “two sparkling alpine lakes full of trout and salmon.” If Jim Miller prevails in a…
‘I hope other states don’t do this …’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Taking Liberties.” Renee Ross and her husband, Bryan, live on 32 acres near Molalla, southeast of Portland. It’s hilly, with woods and pasture, and spring-fed Teasel Creek flows through it. She also thought Measure 37 was a good idea. Now, two of her neighbors…
November Surprise
If it seems like we’re yelling at you with this issue’s big cover headline, well, we are. If you read only one thing this summer, make it Ray Ring’s cover story, “Taking Liberties,” which starts on page 8. Then pass it on to a friend, and tell her to do the same. Ray’s story gets…
Dear friends
SUMMER EDITORIAL RETREAT In June, our editors and correspondents spent a day and a half at an editorial retreat (actually, it was more like a “full rout,” quipped one staffer). Former staffer Florence Williams, now a successful freelance writer, gave us a workshop on magazine writing techniques. Look for exciting changes coming to the news…
As states ponder protection, roadless forests unravel
Forest Service says it’s bound by the rules to allow some logging, drilling and mining
Failing Bay-Delta may take a living fossil with it
As farmed sturgeon thrive, wild populations are in trouble
Saving open land — a taxing problem
Open-space campaigners look for the winning formula