It’s not easy to wean Westerners away from their lush, traditional, turfgrass lawns, but with drought an increasing fact of life, Xeriscape gardening is finally catching on.
Also in this issue: Three compromise wilderness bills have passed the House and now await Senate approval.
Stiles responds
I’d like to respond to Kevin Walker’s recent letter (HCN, 7/24/06: SUWA’s on the right track). He rejects my comments that enviro groups like SUWA have ignored impacts from non-motorized recreation and the “amenities economy.” He also calls “completely false” my assertion that SUWA altered a proposed wilderness boundary to avoid conflicts with the “24 Hours…
For the love of a river
“Welcome to a way of life”: With these words, Christa Sadler invites readers to sit down by her literary campfire on the banks of the Colorado River. There’s This River is a gathering of rambunctious tattletales: often-hilarious accounts of river guides’ (mis)adventures herding tourists through the Grand Canyon. The anthology includes a glossary of river…
A Calie cheers for ‘Tamarisk Hunter’
Just finished reading “The Tamarisk Hunter” (HCN, 6/26/06:The Tamarisk Hunter). Wow! What a great piece of fiction (maybe)! The excellent illustrations set the stage. This was a nice twist in a great paper. Ken Decker Santee, California This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A Calie cheers for ‘Tamarisk…
Loss and renewal in the Northwest
“These stories of loss are about farming and forestry in the Pacific Northwest,” writes Steven Radosevich in this compact collection of essays. “They come along with me out of my vineyard.” Radosevich, hunter, fisherman, grape grower and professor of forest science at Oregon State University, writes simple, painful prose about the diminishing natural wealth of…
Stick to the news
Remember, always, you are High Country News and not a literary sheet specializing in fiction, such as your issue featuring “The Tamarisk Hunter” (HCN, 6/26/06:The Tamarisk Hunter). If I want summer reading, I will pick my own fiction. I subscribe to you for balanced, in-depth news on natural resource issues in the West. Tom McAllister…
Bearable ways to deal with bruins
Generally speaking, the last thing anybody wants is a book waving a “practical” banner. But practical can also be informative and funny, especially when it comes to bears. Linda Masterson, an award-winning writer and volunteer for the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s Bear Aware team, has succeeded in converting what could have been a boring how-to…
‘Tamarisk Hunter’ not far from the mark
Thought-provoking piece of fiction (nonfiction?) (HCN, 6/26/06: The Tamarisk Hunter). Good writing and imagery. The city of Grand Junction is very involved in the “coalition” of Colorado water users funding the efforts of Jim Lochhead in negotiations between the Upper and Lower Basin states. Your scenarios are not far from the mark and touch on some…
Land is not chattel
Your otherwise excellent article on Measure 37 omitted one area that has cried for rebuttal — the term “property rights” (HCN, 7/24/06: Taking Liberties). All land in the United States (with the possible exception of tribal lands) comes as a conveyance from the government. That grant came and comes with strings, of which there are four:…
Mainstream libertarians
Not all libertarians are affiliated with the Libertarian Party and get just 1 to 2 percent of the vote in elections (HCN, 7/24/06: Taking Liberties). The majority of libertarians these days are active in the GOP and actually win elections, like Congressmen Ron Paul of Texas, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Butch Otter of Idaho, and Dana…
Measure 37 snookered voters
Yee-haw! It’s great to see High Country News riding full bore to expose the awful “takings” initiatives under way in six Western states (HCN, 7/24/06: Taking Liberties). HCN is right on when it asserts that people were snookered into voting for this awful legislation in Oregon, where I lived at the time. Even my conservationist and…
Measure 37 a wake-up call
As an Oregon voter, I strongly support Measure 37 (HCN, 7/24/06). Do I think it solves everything about land use? Of course not. Will it need revision in the future? Certainly. So why do I support it? Because it forces government at all levels to pause and think about what they are doing. In some areas…
A ‘no’ vote for takings measures
I stumbled across your newspaper at my girlfriend’s house (the landlords subscribe to it) and while waiting for my microwave meal to heat, I started reading this article (HCN, 7/24/06: Taking Liberties). By the time I was done, my food was cold and I was ranting and raving to my girlfriend about this Howie Rich devil…
Takings law could help property owners
Ray Ring writes: “Governments use eminent domain occasionally, to condemn property and force the owners to accept a buyout, to make new roads, urban renewal and other projects that benefit the public” (HCN, 7/24/06: Taking Liberties). OK, but who decides if the projects will benefit the public? In New Mexico, Bernalillo County has rezoned so that…
Sick and tired of regulations
The “Taking Liberties” article is pure propaganda (HCN, 7/24/06: Taking Liberties). These sinister Libertarians who can never seem to get a percent or two of the vote have somehow hypnotized Oregon voters (hardly a bastion of conservatism) and pulled the wool out from under everyone? Huh? All of these measures are going to pass and pass…
Fight fire with fire
One response to the takings movement might be to pass legislation allowing neighbors to sue developers for reductions in their own property values, or recreationists to sue them for lost value of amenities. Posted by nordell This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Fight fire with fire.
Tough luck, planners
The “Taking Liberties” article is completely overblown (HCN, 7/24/06: Taking Liberties). I have filed and won a Measure 37 claim, so I have some experience with this. The sky is not falling, folks. Life in Oregon goes on as before, for 99 percent of the people. No, everyone is not finding a trailer park or gravel…
Uninformed voters create unintended consequences
Ray Ring’s “Taking Liberties” shows how easily the initiative process can lead to unintended and unpleasant consequences (HCN, 7/24/06: Taking Liberties). Most people rarely take the time to fully inform themselves on the issues they’re voting on. It reminds me of something the journalist H.L. Mencken said almost a hundred years ago: “Democracy is the theory…
Splendid isolation?
Dorothy English said it as plain as possible: “I want my land to be mine, to do with whatever I want” (HCN, 7/24/06: Taking Liberties). Community concerns enter in not. I live in isolation on this planet and I don’t want to be obstructed by war, famine, pestilence, nearby neighbors, or global warming. It is my…
Nine reasons why a river is good for the soul
SILT. Healthy particles of silt are suspended in the river, buffed off eons of Wingate sandstone and the debris of flash floods fire-hosing through twisted arroyos. These tiny particles of soil, mud, stone, trees and bones scour our skin as we float in the slow, warm current of the river. We drift in silence, particles…
Heard around the West
NEVADA Thanks to two wet winters in a row, it’s a booming summer for Western toads in the Washoe and Lemmon valleys of Nevada, reports the Reno Gazette-Journal. Suddenly, toads and toadlets are everywhere, and there’s the danger that you’ll step on one as you cross the street, or mow down hundreds when you cut…
The Lure of the Lawn
Can Westerners get over their romance with turf?
A green obsession
One of my favorite refrigerator pictures is a shot of my father-in-law, Bob Cook. He’s seated atop a brand-new John Deere mowing machine, wearing a grin that could outshine any kid’s on Christmas morning. Why is this man so happy? It’s partly the machine, which is one of those fancy, hand-controlled models that can spin…
Dear friends
CONGRATS, MATT AND PAOLO HCN staffers recently took home two more writing awards. West Coast correspondent Matt Jenkins received the 2006 James V. Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism for his story “Squeezing Water from a Stone” (HCN, 9/19/05: Squeezing Water from a Stone). Judges had high praise for Matt’s story about the implications of Las…
How we lost our ranch to gas drilling
Our cattle, our dreams and our ranching lives are now a thing of the past. My husband and I felt obligated to sell everything we had worked for over nine years in Silt, in western Colorado, to escape the impacts of gas drilling. As one who has lived through the experience, I can say that…
Two weeks in the West
“No one will look upon her tenure as the golden age of the Park Service.” — Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, on the recent resignation of Park Service Chief Fran Mainella. Mainella’s tenure was contentious — the agency was widely criticized for a 2005 management policy that emphasized recreation over conservation, and…
Wilderness cliffhanger
Three compromise bills pass the House, await Senate approval
Tribes tackle taggers
Gang culture — and violence — hit rural Indian reservations
Clearing a path for power
Plans for power lines and pipelines would make it easier to tap the West’s energy boom
Safety first
NAME Steve Ficklin VOCATION Petroleum Engineering Technician AGE 54 HOME BASE Silt, Colorado KNOWN FOR Keeping drill rigs from blowing up HOBBIES Working brainteaser math problems, fishing, hunting, camping. HE SAYS “Each hole is different. No two wells are identical.” Steve Ficklin doesn’t talk a lot. As he drives along a dirt road outside the…
Have golf’s glory days gone by?
The game that brought grass to the desert appears to be drying up
What is Xeriscaping?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Lure of the Lawn.” Twenty-five years ago, Ken Ball and his Denver Water colleagues developed the seven basic principles of Xeriscaping. Those commandments are still in use today. Plan and design the landscape for water conservation and beauty from the start. Create practical…
Xeric Families of the West
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Lure of the Lawn.” Harold and Joan Leinbach First, it was floods, which left 10 inches of water standing in Harold and Joan Leinbach’s Boulder yard — and seeping under their foundation — in the spring of 1995. Then it was drought, which…