Thank you for your recent coverage of the impacts and politics of invasive species (HCN, 6/22/98). The spread and establishment of exotics in the West is truly one of the least recognized natural-resource challenges of our time and one which promises to overwhelm the stability and health of our ecosystems if left unchecked. To help […]
Yes, there’s an alien invasion
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Sorry, no alien invasion here
Dear HCN, I was surprised to see science fiction in High Country News (-It rhymes with scourge,” HCN, 6/22/98). First it was the Yellow Peril, then it was the Russians and Men from Mars, and now we have invasions by hordes of alien plants unwittingly let loose by gardeners. It’s true that Euphorbia myrsinites (donkeytail […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Western Slope wins water wrestle
Water users on Colorado’s Western Slope are celebrating a court decision that keeps the “river” in the Gunnison River Basin. A district water-court judge ruled that there was not enough excess water in the Gunnison River watershed for the Union Park project, a proposal that would have diverted 60,000 acre-feet of water per year to […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Tucson acts to stall sprawl
-At least it’s not Phoenix,” mutter some Tucson residents when asked about the city’s runaway growth. But as Tucson continues to sprawl into the surrounding Sonoran desert, many think it’s beginning to look a lot like its larger neighbor. Dismay over that relentless push helps to explain why, in late May, Pima County unanimously approved […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Fast flux on a fast track
Washington state officials have been firing warning shots at the federal Department of Energy, threatening fines for the sluggish pace of cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation (HCN, 5/11/98). “We have had a change of philosophy. We are going to hold their feet to the fire,” says Democratic Gov. Gary Locke. Yet Locke is ready […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Utes fight for right to prosecute
The Ute Indian Tribe has discovered the power of money. Some 10 months after the tribe’s business committee launched a boycott of Roosevelt, Utah, businesses there continue to feel its sting. The boycott centers on a decades-old dispute over who should prosecute tribal members charged with misdemeanors in the town of Roosevelt, pop. 5,000 – […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
The Wayward West
Vast tracts of inholdings in the Mojave National Preserve in California are for sale – and its National Park Service caretakers can only watch the new neighbors move in (HCN, 4/14/97). Newcomers could mean 100 houses and a golf course. Just across the state line in Nevada, a county wants to build a major airport. […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Judge nixes salmon plan
Oregon’s Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber had high hopes that his plan for saving coastal coho salmon from extinction could stave off listing the fish as endangered, and set an example of stewardship for other Western states. The “Oregon Plan” featured collaboration among private landowners, who own 65 percent of the salmon’s habitat, the local timber […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Editor’s note
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces this issue’s feature story. In the 1960s, revolutions in Indian country were political, and the media swarmed in to cover sit-ins, demonstrations and fiery speeches. When the sit-ins and occasional violence ended, the media left and people on the reservations found little had changed. Today, Indian country is in […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Heard around the West
You’re in a car when a thunderstorm boils out of the West and rain pelts down. What do you do? Nothing, of course, since the National Lightning Safety Institute says cars are one of the safest places to be during lightning strikes – relatively speaking. Two teenagers in a ’92 Subaru near Jackson, Wyo., found […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
At Tahoe, it’s agreed: old growth gets to stay
The residents of the Lake Tahoe Basin want their old-growth trees, dead or alive. A regulation that took effect last month all but prohibits the harvest of trees over 30 inches in diameter, whether they are on public or private land. Because it applies to both green and standing dead trees, the Tahoe ordinance expands […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
No fences make bad neighbors in Montana
BOZEMAN, Mont. – Warren McMillan steers his Chevy Blazer past a wooden sign that advertises residential lots for sale, many of them 20 acres in size with stunning views of the eastern face of the Bridger Mountains. He is wearing a straw cowboy hat, black cowboy boots, cowboy-cut Levis and a cowboy shirt. He passes […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Congress drags its feet on Baca Ranch deal
If there is one property that ought to be bought and preserved as public land for all Americans, say Forest Service officials, it’s the 95,000-acre Baca Ranch – most of the Valles Caldera – a place almost completely surrounded by the Santa Fe National Forest. So this summer, Forest Service staffer Denise McCaig has been […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Extinct volcano is up for grabs
From space, northern New Mexico’s Valles Caldera, also known as the Baca Ranch, looks vaguely like the cast of a bear paw print. Small lava-formed mountains rise like inverted claw marks in front of massive Redondo Peak, all nestled within the rim of the world’s largest extinct volcano. From the ground, what most impresses visitors […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Utah finds 3 million more wild acres
Equipped with an old Jeep Cherokee 4×4 and a stack of large-scale topographical maps, Kevin Walker spent two years combing southern Utah. He was looking for wild, unprotected tracts of Bureau of Land Management land that might have been left out of a coalition’s wilderness proposal. His team – Walker helped lead the citizens’ inventory […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Dear Friends
Call for water If you called the Paonia office in mid-July to order five copies of HCN’s collection of water articles, Water in the West, please call again. We have the soft-bound collection of articles and the back issues you also asked for all packed. But we don’t have your name and address. We apologize […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
A banker battles to hold the government accountable
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. BROWNING, Mont. – Until recently, Browning, a dusty settlement on the Blackfeet Indian reservation in northern Montana, was known more for its bar fights than its financial enterprise. But thanks to the small town’s banker, Elouise Cobell, Browning is becoming known for something else. […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Note: A front-page editor’s note and a sidebar titled “A banker battles to hold the government accountable” accompany this feature story. FORT HALL, Idaho – The councilman’s voice drones through the microphone, echoing off walls lined with nickel slots and joker poker games. The Shoshone and Bannock people file into the bingo hall slowly, some […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Backlash
Dear HCN, I often wonder how anyone can be anti-environmentalist, and there are sure a lot of folks who feel that way, especially here in Idaho. To me, being anti-environmentalist is being anti-life, anti-happiness, anti-future. But when I see statements like those attributed to mystery writer Nevada Barr (HCN, 5/25/98), in which she suggests it […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Can the Forest Service change?
Dear HCN, It seems nearly every issue of High Country News has some article dealing with the decline and fall of the U.S. Forest Service. This strikes near and dear to my heart since I spent over 27 years with the agency. The agency is not the same one I started working for in 1970. […]