Magazine
September 30, 1996
In Idaho, Democrat Walt Minnick, a multimillionaire, former timber executive and environmentalist, mounts a quixotic campaign against Republican Sen. Larry Craig for Senate seat.
Feature
In Idaho, Democrat Walt Minnick, a multimillionaire,
former timber executive and environmentalist, mounts a quixotic
campaign against Republican Sen. Larry Craig for Senate
seat.
President Bill Clinton uses the Antiquities Act of 1906 to
designate a new 1.7 million-acre national monument in southern
Utah, and reactions range from joy to indignation and
outrage.
Essays
Variable voting patterns on the West make it difficult to
predict who will win on election day.
Western wilderness is too popular for its own good -
especially among wealthy foreigners who come to ski at
Vail.
Land swaps, like the one planned to save land near
Yellowstone National Park from mining, are a bad habit with a bad
history in Montana's national forests.
The greatest moments in American conservation history
often involved the same presidential audacity - and provoked the
same outrage - as President Clinton's establishment of the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The author says the Escalante belongs as much to the rest
of the world as to Utah, and provides a kind of energy that has
nothing to do with coal.
Dear Friends
Odds and ends, corrections, fall visitors, web wanderings,
llamas continued.
News
Some worry that the land swap proposed to prevent Crown
Butte Resources from mining near Yellowstone has only a 50-50
chance of success.
Prolific New Zealand mudsnails are invading Yellowstone
Park's Madison River, where scientists worry they will disrupt the
food chain.
A new management proposal for Montana's Glacier National
Park, designed to control visitor overcrowding, meets opposition
from the local tourism industry and others.
Around 900 people were arrested at a protest in Carlotta,
Calif., in an attempt to save the Headwaters Grove - the world's
largest privately owned redwood forest, from being
logged.
One of only 132 adult salmon to survive the spawning
journey to Idaho's Salmon River is killed - and eaten - by a
poacher.
Justice Department lawyers go after Canadian mining
magnate Robert Friedland for the Summitville gold mine cleanup in
Colorado.
Wyoming businessman Mark Alldredge files 104 mining claims
in Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, possibly searching for
diamonds.
Local Navajos lead the fight against Hydro Resources
Inc.'s plan to leach uranium from groundwater at three sites on or
near the Navajo Reservation.
A plan to build a visitor's center for Utah's Grand Gulch
worries some, who fear more people - including pothunters - will be
encouraged to visit the area.
The President's Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
says the Forest Service erred by letting construction of a
telescope on Arizona's Mount Graham begin before the cultural
significance of the site had been considered.
Bruce Babbitt's announcement of a new BLM inventory of
southern Utah wilderness leads to a flurry of illegal road work,
since roaded land can't be classified as wilderness.
The Crested Butte Ski Resort in Colorado drops its plans
to build new ski runs on a neighboring mountain.
Utah's plan to enlarge I-15 in Salt Lake City worries some
environmentalists, farmers and hunters, who say the proposed
highway corridor includes lakeside wetlands and farmland.
Book Reviews
The 22nd annual conference, "The Producer/Consumer
Connection," is being held Oct. 11-13 on Flathead Lake near
Rollins, Mont.
The New Mexico Wilderness Coalition and Santa Fe chapter
of Sierra Club sponsor an Oct. 5 workshop on "Wilderness: The
Foundation of Culture."
"Unplug America: Give mother earth a rest day" will be
held Oct. 13, started by Native American environmental groups,
including the Seventh Generation Fund.
"Literary Natural History: Scientists and Artists" is a
series of free public readings October through April.
Jeff Rast of the Center for Small Acreage Farming in Camas
County, Idaho, tries to help small farms survive and
prosper.
"How the West Can Win: A Blueprint for a Clean &
Affordable Energy Future" offers environmental alternatives to
relying on coal.
The report, "Working in Durango, Colorado," documents the
economic inequity of a booming Colorado town.
Thomas L. Clark's new book, "Western Lore and Language: A
Dictionary for Enthusiasts of the American West," documents Western
slang.
Heard Around the West
Mining and sea-captaining in Vail; Boy Scouts stone
California bear; mountain lions chase mountain bikers and domestic
pets; illegal immigrants disrespectful of horse trailer; park
volunteers; tourist railroad billed for forest fire.
Sidebar
Incumbent Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig has a strong
conservative and industrial backing.
Democrat Walt Minnick and incumbent Republican Sen. Larry
Craig fall into clear party lines in their views on many
issues.
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, R., in his own words, condemns the
new monument.
The 1.7 million acres at the new Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument contain a wide variety of landscapes, life zones
and archaeological treasures.
Utah's newest national monument will be managed by the BLM
instead of the Park Service, and a lot of the details for that
management remain to be worked out.
