Dear HCN, Robert Nold’s dismissal of the threat posed by non-native species is a classic case of denial (HCN, 8/3/98). By his own admission, he has “grown about 2,000 species of plants … and few have shown any “irreversible” tendencies to invade native habitats.” Observation has shown me that “a few” is all it takes. […]
Exotics not a threat? Don’t believe it
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Fees and bureaucratic babble
Dear HCN, Shame on you for printing the bureaucratic babble Fees Please Visitors … without giving equal time to Scott Silver (Bulletin Board, HCN, 6/22/98). I worked for the Park Service, BLM and Forest Service for a quarter of a century. I know self-serving government propaganda when I see it. Even if their new fee […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Essayist Steve Lyons goes too far
Dear HCN, Normally, I try to respect everyone and their opinion. I might not agree with them. I might even feel forced to oppose them if they take action I feel is in error. But I respect their opinions, nevertheless. But I draw the line at the unmitigated and ridiculous arrogance of Stephen Lyons in […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A bridge to disaster?
There’s a traffic jam in West Yellowstone, Mont., and the Gallatin National Forest wants to do something about it. Snowmobilers who buzz across Cougar Creek on a crowded highway bridge need an alternative route, says the agency, because they’re creating a safety problem for themselves and other drivers. But environmentalists contend that an agency plan […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A county writes strict logging rules
A pro-logging northern New Mexico county has passed a far-reaching law that mandates watershed-friendly logging practices on private land. “There’s nothing else like this (in the U.S.),” said attorney David Gomez of the Western Environmental Law Center in Taos, N.M., who helped draft the ordinance. The three-man Rio Arriba County Commission passed the ordinance unanimously […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Wolves develop an appetite for beef
In Montana, ranchers and government officials remain baffled by the Ninemile wolves’ appetite for beef. Since April, the wolf pack, originally made famous in Rick Bass’s book, The Ninemile Wolves, has been responsible for killing four calves and one 600-pound yearling. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in turn, has been responsible for killing four […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A familiar name returns to Western politics
Some say the West has its own version of the Kennedy clan – the Udalls. A generation of Westerners has heard of Morris Udall, the former Arizona congressman, and Stewart, his brother, former secretary of the Interior. These days it’s their sons who are in the news. Morris’ son Mark, now a Colorado state legislator, […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
An activist dies in the forest
Logging spokesmen say the death of an Earth First! activist should serve to get protesters out of the woods; Earth First! says: Not a chance. David Chain, 24, of Austin, Texas, was killed when he was struck in the head by a falling tree Sept. 17. He’d been trying to stop logging on land owned […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
The Wayward West
Poet Gary Snyder won’t be talking to prospective foresters at Oregon State University’s School of Forestry. Because his talk was scheduled to occur just before election day – when Oregonians will vote on a clear-cutting ban – forestry dean George Brown canceled Snyder’s visit (HCN, 9/14/98). “I did not want to put Gary … in […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A lifetime of service on the North Dakota plains
A slide show: Old pictures narrated in a yell by his daughter. Joe Sorkness is turning 97, and is deaf. He still lives in Jamestown, N.D., where he spends time piled in a chair, squinting at the Wall Street Journal through coke-bottle glasses that make his eyes look as big as eggs. “Here we are […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Heard around the West
In Salt Lake City, a fat pig must find a permanent home, says the Humane Society of Utah. The tusked animal is called Elvis, and like the singer at the end of his life, he has puffed up, weighing in at 175 pounds and still putting on the pork. But the potbellied crossbreed is said […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Proposed mine threatens ecosystem
CAVE JUNCTION, Ore. – In the red rock that rises above southwest Oregon’s Rough and Ready Creek, a unique ecosystem flourishes. “(The soil) has a composition that’s totally off-kilter with what’s in the earth’s crust,” says retired Stanford University geologist Robert Coleman. “Most plants don’t like that,” but, he adds, an odd variety flourishes there. […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Listening for wolf howls
When Suzanne Laverty first met Travis Bullock, who calls himself a “redneck outfitter,” she wrote a brief impression of him in her diary: “Travis Bullock – Butthead.” But Bullock wasn’t so bullheaded that he didn’t see value in Laverty’s suggestion that he capitalize on the nation’s curiosity about the wolves that had been transplanted into […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
The Rocky Mountain Front faces new oil-and-gas threat
BABB, Mont. – Chief Mountain, a 9,000-foot outlying peak west of here, stands like a boundary marker on the Rocky Mountain Front, where glacier-carved peaks meet rolling plains. It also marks the political intersection of Glacier National Park’s eastern boundary with the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. A recent plan by the Blackfeet tribal business council to […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
When government gets in growth’s way
BOISE, Idaho – Each morning, Gary Richardson looks out the front window of his foothills home and scans the skyline. Above the steel cranes towering over new high-rise office buildings, Richardson sees a yellow-brown haze hanging over the city. Below, a steady stream of cars creeps toward downtown. “I can see Los Angeles coming to […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Dear Friends
It’s in the mail Forgive us if we sound dramatic. But this fall, as every fall, subscribers will make a life or death decision about High Country News. The decision will be whether to contribute to the paper’s Research Fund. The letter asking for your support will tell you that without the Research Fund, there […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
A tangled web of watersheds
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Rio Costilla represents only a tiny part of the overall Rio Grande system, which crosses state and international boundaries, trickles through dams, and loses volume through countless diversions during its 2,000-mile long journey. The Costilla Creek Compact distinguishes the Rio Costilla, but the […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
As mayordomo
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. As mayordomo you become the pump, the heart that moves the vital fluid down the artery to the little plots of land of each of the cells, the parciantes. Water relationships would be simple and linear were they not complicated by all those other […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
Next to blood relationships
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Next to blood relationships, which rule the valley, come water relationships. The arteries of ditches and bloodlines cut across each other in patterns of astounding complexity. Some families own properties on two or three of the valley’s nine ditches. You can argue that the […]
Posted inOctober 12, 1998: A river becomes a raw nerve
I am mayordomo
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. I am mayordomo of a very small irrigation ditch. My position would be a curiosity to most people I take pleasure in conversing with in the city and would be to them probably of little more importance than the identity of the plant emerging […]