Conservationists, politicians, Indians and farmers fight over the polluted but beautiful land of Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Can a salvage sale save the trees?
For the first time in the history of the Forest Service, the high bidder of a timber sale has no intention of felling the trees. The Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, a nonprofit conservation organization based in Bellingham, Wash., bid $29,000 for the Thunder Mountain salvage sale, a 275-acre roadless tract in Washington’s Okanogan National Forest. But…
Public Rangelands Grazing Workshop
Learn how to protect public lands from livestock abuse during a Feb. 3-4 program at Arizona State University in Tempe. Writer and grazing critic Steve Johnson begins the Public Rangelands Grazing Workshop by detailing grazing’s effects on ecosystems; the program concludes with a BLM-conducted field trip to examine rangeland health near Phoenix. Registration costs $10…
Welcome back (with a bang)
After 21 days of leave with uncertain pay due to the federal budget impasse, Forest Service workers in Espaûola, N.M., returned to work Jan. 8 to find their office had been bombed. “What a welcome back,” says Sam Mott, a spokesman for the Santa Fe National Forest. “We’d feel better if we knew why. It’s…
Big shoes empty in Oregon
Big shoes empty in Oregon After 28 years, the door to both of Oregon’s senate seats has swung wide open. The race to replace Republican powerhouses Mark Hatfield, who has announced his retirement after November, and Bob Packwood, forced to resign, begins with the Jan. 30 election for Packwood’s spot. Because many see the race…
Beyond hunting
Dear HCN, I grew up with men; somehow, much to my mother’s disappointment, I ended up walking the fields with them instead of making pies in the kitchen. I shot the pheasant instead of staying in and stuffing the turkey. I spent weeks on the banks of rivers or the shores of lakes waiting for…
Hunting is no joke
Dear HCN, I am offended at the characterization of hunting as a sport; to me, it is serious business (HCN, 12/11/95). I have taken 25 large ungulates over the past 18 years, but I do not have any of their heads displayed on my wall. I hunt for meat, not for trophies, seeking the animal…
Fish for your wall
FISH FOR YOUR WALL A new Trout Unlimited poster tells a few good fish stories. The Apache trout and greenback cutthroat trout are both on the road to recovery since being listed as endangered species in 1973. But the poster, Threatened and Endangered Trout and Salmon of North America also shares less cheery tales of…
Get real, ranchers
Dear HCN, Your “Saving the Ranch” issue Nov. 27 really stunk. I guess I shouldn’t have expected an Aspen reporter to speak truthfully about Steamboat Springs. Your reporter states that “Nine out of 10 people surveyed in 1993 said they believe that ranch meadows and grasslands with grazing cows and horses enhance their lives.” And…
Let’s keep talking
LET’S KEEP TALKING The Navajo word for newspaper means “the paper that gossips,” according to a new booklet on the history of Native American journalism, Pictures of Our Nobler Selves. The author, Shoshone-Bannock journalist and Salt Lake Tribune editor Mark Trahant, says that to create an accurate portrait of Native communities, it’s crucial for Native…
Now for the details
Dear HCN, Your issue on forestry schools was rich in academic intrigue, the personalities involved and what they are arguing over (HCN, 11/13/95). I strongly urge you to present another special issue on what that argument is about: the ecology and economy of healthy forests. I also hope you will use the opportunity to teach…
One forest, two studies
ONE FOREST, TWO STUDIES In the old West, arguments may have been settled by a gunfight on Main Street, but in the battle over Southwest forests there is a new kind of showdown – dueling studies. A recent Forest Service report claims that the number of larger trees in the region has decreased little over…
Count in the little logger
Dear HCN, Your article on massive tree thinning to make room for the return of ponderosa pine forests (Northern Arizona U. looks back, moves forward, 11/13/95) offers valuable insights to conservationists. The article’s claim that thinning is economically viable raises an interesting question, namely, viable for whom? Big mills have retooled to process the smaller…
States and tribes
States and tribes Now that many tribes are aggressively asserting their sovereignty on issues ranging from water rights to Indian gambling, cooperation between tribal and state governments has become crucial. That’s the conclusion of States and Tribes: Building New Traditions, a recent publication of the National Conference of State Legislators. The report outlines some major…
Not a good old boy
Dear HCN, Jon Christensen was prophetic when he wrote that the Forest Service would not replace Kevin Atchley with a “good old boy” (HCN, 10/30/95). (Christensen’s Great Basin story told of Atchley’s transfer within Nevada, following hostile incidents toward Forest Service personnel.) I’m living proof: the “new range con.” I’ve found if you deal with…
The Northwest’s new economy
THE NORTHWEST’S NEW ECONOMY When the Pacific Northwest’s timber and aerospace industries started declining, some people predicted the region would become the next Appalachia. Instead, the region is thriving, says University of Montana economist Tom Power, whose conclusion is endorsed by 34 other Northwest economists. Growth in earnings, employment and population in Idaho, Montana, Oregon…
Foundation’s help was invaluable
Dear HCN, Mike Medberry’s report on big foundations, national conservation coalitions and grassroots conservation was thoughtful and respectful of the subject’s complexities (HCN, 10/16/95). The Pew Charitable Trusts was featured in Mike’s piece. Many conservationists are not wild about Pew. I have experience of Pew as an employee of a grantee and as steering committee…
Survival of a trickster
SURVIVAL OF A TRICKSTER The coyote has never gotten much respect. For the past two centuries, ranchers, farmers and federal agents have ruthlessly gunned and poisoned the tawny predator. Yet unlike its larger cousin, the wolf, the coyote has thrived, and expanded its range into virtually every ecosystem in North America. How the legendary trickster…
Beyond the Rangeland Conflict: The Future of the West
Northeastern Nevada’s Elko County has been torn apart by conflict between ranchers and the Forest Service (HCN, 10/30/95). But there are efforts under way to create some common ground by weaving together environmental values and sustainable grazing practices. The Great Basin College in Elko wants to be part of that change. During the Cowboy Poetry…
Headwaters
Environmental activists convene Feb. 1-4 at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore., for the annual winter Headwaters conference. Registration is $60-$100, on a sliding scale, and academic credit is available. For more information, contact Chant Thomas, P.O. Box 729, Ashland, OR 97520 (541/899-1712). This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the…
Whirling Disease – Where Do We Go From Here?
Whirling disease experts from around the world will gather in Denver Feb. 6-8 to discuss solutions to what has become a problem worldwide. The Colorado Division of Wildlife and other state and national organizations are sponsoring the event, called Whirling Disease – Where Do We Go from Here? Registration costs $100. Contact Beverly Cline or…
At Hanford, the real estate is hot
To become a Yakima Nation warrior, a young man had to run from the top of Rattlesnake Mountain to the Columbia River and back to the mountain top. That meant dropping 2,400 feet to the valley floor, sprinting 10 miles to the water, and then returning to climb this rise, which looks like a crumpled…
Amid the lovely the lethal remains
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, At Hanford, the real estate is hot. During the four decades the Hanford Nuclear Reservation produced weapons-grade plutonium, it laced eastern Washington’s soil, water and air with radioactive sludge that may never disappear. Recently, Hanford also became synonymous with human radiation experiments that make…
Who felt the federal furlough?
While his colleagues paced anxiously at home during the 21-day federal furlough, Forest Service timber contracting officer Lathrop Smith administered 13 green timber sales in southwestern Colorado. He was hampered – -there were no soil scientists, hydrologists or biologists’ – but stayed on the job. Smith was not alone. Although most of the West’s federal…
Hanford’s prime cuts
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, At Hanford, the real estate is hot. Four pieces of Hanford will likely spur the most contention as prospective landlords jocky for control. The Hanford Reach encompasses the last 51 undammed miles of the Columbia River and is a significant spawning area for endangered…
Yellowstone’s closure sparks local fury
Note: this article appears in the print edition as a sidebar to another news story, “Who felt the federal furlough?“ CODY, Wyo. – After investing in a fleet of 40 new snowmobiles, Bob Coe was counting on a busy winter at Pahaska Tepee, the lodge he runs just outside Yellowstone National Park. At least 80…
For further reading
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, At Hanford, the real estate is hot. Nuclear Culture: Living and Working in the World’s Largest Atomic Complex, by Paul Loeb, 1986, New Society Publishers. Loeb looks at the nation’s largest nuclear weapons complex through the eyes of the people working there and details…
Hanford: Boomtown of the atomic frontier
At the beginning of World War II, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr told American scientists that “to get the fissionable materials necessary to make a bomb, you’re going to have to turn the whole country into a factory.” He exaggerated, of course. The factory took up counties, not countries. The Hanford Engineering Works in a…
Clogged channel sends a river over its bank in Washington
SHELTON, Wash. – When the Skokomish River floods, Mark and Laurie Sleeper can watch salmon swimming through their front yard. They move their six kids to drier ground and try to keep their possessions from floating away. In lesser floods, the Sleepers park their car on the side of the highway and wade home. Although…
Logged hillsides collapse into Idaho’s creeks
CLEARWATER NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho – Forest Service ranger Art Bourassa pulls off to the side of the road and looks up at a raw and broken hillside. Some might assume it’s the freshly scalped victim of a strip-mining operation. Not this time. Torrential November rains washed out this section of forest in northern Idaho. At…
Heard Around the West
Movies about Nevada’s casino life always seem to revolve around gangsters, call girls and stool pigeons. In a shocking reversal of that trend, pigeon stools brought down the marquee of the Golden Spike Casino in Carson City this month. “We are concerned about it,” casino co-owner Jim Bawden told the Reno Gazette-Journal in an article…
Hunting: Get used to it
Let me state right off and as unapologetically as possible that I am a member of the “hook-and-bullet” press – a field editor of the venerable Outdoor Life magazine, which along with its sister publication, Field & Stream, are America’s original conservation magazines. Both have been in business since before the turn of the century,…
Dear Friends
Hunting issue reverberates From Montana writer Scott McMillion about our exploration of some issues surrounding hunting (HCN, 12/11/95): “The top of the food chain is a pretty good place to be, and don’t forget: More money is spent each year on hunting than on movie tickets.” From California reader Bryan Hill: “Anti-hunters have a moral…