In southern Colorado’s isolated Wet Mountain Valley, a former county commissioner is hoping nearly eight years of effort will keep the area free from more low-flying military planes. “If we’re concerned about our peace and quiet, our lifestyle, our agricultural community and our wildlife, then we’d better stand up and let the military know,” says […]
Locals battle military planes
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
The Wayward West
Politicians in Idaho are talking about doing away with four Snake River dams (HCN, 9/1/97). Robert Huntley, Democratic candidate for governor, called the lower dams “impediments to prosperity,” reports the Idaho Statesman, while a Republican running against Rep. Helen Chenoweth in the primary said his party had to protect endangered species. “Letting species go extinct, […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Heard Around the West
Old myths die hard, especially when perpetrated by Hollywood. On the Flathead Reservation in western Montana, tourists regularly want to know: “Where are the flat heads?” reports the Great Falls Tribune. And some people visiting the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Mont., expect Native Americans to live in tepees and to wear feathered […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Waste Land: Meditations on a Ravaged Landscape
Preface by Wendell Berry It is unfortunately supposable that some people will account for these photographic images as “abstract art,” or will see them as “beautiful shapes.” But anybody who troubles to identify in these pictures the things that are readily identifiable (trees, buildings, roads, vehicles, etc.) will see that nothing in them is abstract […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Thirty days left for politics, petulance
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The year is almost over. If you’re computing the time between now and Dec. 31, broaden your horizons. We are talking here about the legislative year, which ends on Oct. 2, liberating congresspersons to return home to campaign. Even subtracting weekends, this would leave almost 100 days for Congress its wonders to […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Feds sue a Utah county for building a road in a national park
Garfield County in Utah has yet to prove historical use of the Burr Trail road through Capitol Reef National Park, a federal judge said in April. With the ruling, U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins rejected the county’s motion for summary judgment, and now a trial will likely begin this summer. An attorney defending Garfield County […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Navajos may say no to nuclear waste
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. – As Congress wrangles over what to do with radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, opponents in the Southwest continue to create roadblocks to keep it out. Bills that would allow the Department of Energy to ship nuclear waste to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain by 2003 have passed in both the House and […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Dear Friends
Celebrating the high life Mountain men had their rendezvous; today’s lovers of adventure in wild country have the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival. Film is the draw, but many come for the company available at this most intimate of festivals. Mountaineer legends and environmental heroes like Paul Watson, Bradford and Barbara Washburn, Paul Petzoldt and Galen Rowell […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Bison comeback meets resistance on the ground
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. MEDORA, N.D. – Though bison graze on a national park and some ranches here, they aren’t catching on in Medora, where for generations the industry has been cattle. Some see it as just another of the get-rich-quick schemes that periodically sweep through agriculture. Everyone […]
Posted inJune 8, 1998: Don't fence me in
Don’t fence me in
Are bison becoming just another cow with a hump?
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Summer Fishtrap Gathering and Workshops
Eastern Oregon’s 11th annual Summer Fishtrap Gathering and Workshops July 6-12 will explore the nature of work in an age of increasing automation and the ways that people write about it. Stephanie Coontz, award-winning author of The Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families, will deliver a keynote; for more information write […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Natural Resource Laws and Public Lands Protection Conference
If the law of the land confuses you, look for answers at the Natural Resource Laws and Public Lands Protection Conference in Bozeman, Mont., June 12-13. The conference, sponsored by American Wildlands and the Law Fund, will discuss laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Freedom of Information […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig
Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, both Republicans, aren’t happy about the Colorado BLM’s recent reinventory of potential wilderness areas, and they’ll be in Grand Junction, Colo., June 6 to talk about it. Their public meeting will be held at the Avalon Theater from 8-11 a.m.; on the night before, the nonprofit […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Star Valley Historical Society
Wyoming’s Star Valley Historical Society hosts a “summer trek” June 26-28 for state Historical Society members. Walking tours near the Idaho border will lead to museums, emigration trails, geysers and historic factories for everything from guns to cheese. Registration forms appear in the May Wyoming History News and can also be obtained from the Star […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Glen Canyon Institute’s expanded Web site
The free-flowing past – and future – of the Colorado River is explored at the Glen Canyon Institute’s expanded Web site, www.glencanyon.org. The Salt Lake-based nonprofit group, dedicated to the restoration of Glen Canyon, has added an online bookstore featuring water issues in the desert Southwest. Also available are “Restore Glen Canyon” bumper stickers, and […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Hot and beautiful
Clean energy can emerge from deep beneath the earth’s surface, but will it interfere with the natural beauty of the volcanoes, hot springs and geysers that make it possible? That’s a question asked in Tapping the Earth’s Natural Heat, a 63-page report produced by Wendell Duffield for the U.S. Geological Survey. Compared to other sources […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Survey says: Go wild!
Most supporters of wilderness are just espresso-sipping urbanites, right? Not so, according to a survey of 500 Colorado voters, released in April by a coalition of environmental groups. “We’re talking about four out of five Coloradans,” says Elise Jones of the League of Conservation Voters’ Boulder office. “These are pretty bomb-proof numbers.” The poll, conducted […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Seaside dinosaurs
Theropods – meat-eating dinosaurs that walked on their hind legs – once preyed on small animals near Wyoming’s prehistoric Sundance Sea. To his surprise, geologist Erik Kvale found the dinosaur tracks preserved in fossilized mud along the BLM’s Red Gulch/Alkali National Back Country Byway near Shell, Wyo. While exploring the rippled sandstones last summer, Kvale’s […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Snow geese have become too plentiful
Because snow geese have become too successful for their own good, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is asking for a wholesale hunt. The conversion of pastures to fields of grain has provided a bountiful harvest for the birds, causing the population to soar over the last three decades. Now, say agency biologists, snow geese […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Land swap splits conservationists
Saguaro National Park officials and Tucson environmentalists are praising a recent land exchange that adds 632 acres of prime wildlife habitat to the park’s holdings. They say the expansion helps to protect the cactus forest from urban sprawl, but others are wondering if too much was sacrificed in the process. The Tucson Mountains acreage, owned […]