Some Utah Navajos say their tribe has been cheated out of at least $52 million in oil and gas money by the state of Utah during the past 30 years (HCN, 12/16/91). Although the state says the tribe’s claims are too old to be valid, a district court judge has rejected that argument and given […]
Five Navajos say Utah cheated their tribe
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Ranchers fight a railroad
SOUTH DAKOTA, WYOMING Ranchers fight a railroad Ranchers living on the prairie of southwestern South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming say they’re being railroaded. The Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern railroad wants to extend its line 144 miles from South Dakota into Wyoming to the Powder River Basin’s coal mines. About 54 miles of the new line […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
The Wayward West
Albuquerque, N.M., Mayor Jim Baca, always outspoken, is hopping mad. President Clinton recently signed an emergency spending bill that included chopping 8 1/2 acres out of the city’s Petroglyph National Monument. It’s “dishonest and cheating,” Baca told the Albuquerque Journal, “but that’s life in Washington.” The deleted acreage will go for a road extension to […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
We’re consuming the West
Dear HCN, I would like to respond to Mike Moxcey’s letter, headed “Ranchettes aren’t all bad” (HCN, 3/16/98). Even with the “best” ranchette development, roads, houses, outlying buildings, power lines, sport utility vehicles and cats, dogs, children and adults can strip a land of its wildlife far quicker than can any mismanaged herd of cattle […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
‘Such is life’
Dear HCN, Your cover story about the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity in the March 30 issue reminded me of a vicarious confrontation I had with a cattle rancher in Arizona. First some background: I’m retired from the Forest Service and was the regional geneticist for Region 3 (Arizona and New Mexico) from 1978 to […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Someone’s dreaming
Dear HCN, I could not believe the naivete of Jeff Burgess when he questioned in his letter why Western towns need to be based on ranching, logging and mining (HCN, 4/13/98). His suggestion that we imagine a “quiet little town where most people spend their work week writing innovative software programs … while their weekends […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Idaho can be whatever you are willing to make it
Dear HCN: Writer Stephen J. Lyons failed in his attempt to accurately quote the slogan “Idaho is what America was,” just as he also failed in his attempt to accurately portray the state of Idaho (HCN, 3/16/98). I know. I’m the guy who coined the phrase in 1978. I’ve also lived in the state for […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Lyons did the right thing
Dear HCN, I understand why Stephen J. Lyons moved to Washington state. I don’t understand why he didn’t do it sooner (HCN, 3/16/98). Here in Arizona we have the same problem. Many people move here (mostly from California) and discover that they hate it because of our “bad welfare system, conservative politics, low wages, poor […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Exotic predators swallow the Southwest’s native frogs
LEWIS SPRINGS, Ariz. – Phil Rosen is knee-deep in a disaster this spring day. Just a few years ago, native leopard frogs filled algae-covered pools in this side drainage of the San Pedro River, one of the last free-flowing rivers in the Southwest, 70 miles southeast of Tucson. Now, Rosen keeps turning up bad news. […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
A summer like no other looms ahead
SWAN VALLEY, Mont. – The sweet aroma from a mock orange bush wafts through the air, but Steve Gauger is not here to look at wildflowers. He’s monitoring a wildfire. Like many firefighters, Gauger, incident commander on Montana’s recent 220-acre Goat Creek Fire, is scratching his head over this year’s early fires. On the high […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Monumental deal over Utah’s trust lands
On May 8, after months of quiet negotiations, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt resolved a major sticking point in the debate over the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (HCN, 1/19/98). Their agreement trades the scattered blocks of state-owned school trust lands within the new monument for federal lands elsewhere in […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Ruckus on a recreation river
Each summer, thousands of rafters and kayakers head for central Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon River, considered by many the nation’s premier wilderness river trip. During the week-long, 100-mile journey, floaters play volleyball on the beach, fly fish for native trout, surf the rapids and cook up Dutch oven feasts – all in the […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Turning a vista into a mess
CROZIER CANYON, Ariz. – To some, this short stretch of Route 66 is historically significant, the “Mother Road” of westward migration celebrated in song and television series. To others, the red hills rising up from the desert are sacred and not to be disturbed. Some of these hills belong to Fred Grigg. They’ve been in […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
How California poisoned a small town
PORTOLA, Calif. – The northern pike, a voracious species, has claimed what may be its biggest victim yet: this small town. Officials of the Plumas County town of 2,200 residents say they have lost their backup water supply, half their tourism business and their reputation for a pristine mountain environment – all to the predatory […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Dear Friends
Salt Lake City potluck The High Country News staff and board will converge on Salt Lake City Saturday, June 6, to hold a potluck. These HCN events are held three times a year around the region; they are long on good food and good conversation and vanishingly short on ceremony and speeches. This one will […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
The battle for Crozier Canyon
Arizona mirrors the paradox of the modern West – how to secure the future of tourism without butting heads with traditional, extractive industries. Discount for the moment the public lands, even Grand Canyon National Park, whose establishment may hardly be credited to Arizona. Theodore Roosevelt demanded that Grand Canyon be preserved, and he was a […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
It only seems cruel to fool a fish
“Who hears the fishes when they cry?” That question was asked by a scold, iconoclast and master angler who worried about the pain he inflicted on his quarry. His contemporaries considered him very weird. His name was Henry Thoreau. The same concern is being voiced today by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Heard around the West
Many federal bureaucrats like hiding behind a desk. Jim Furnish is admittedly gregarious. He also loves the Oregon coast and hopes eight citizens from around the United States will want to join him for an expense-paid weekend of brainstorming while taking hikes along the cliffs. Furnish makes no bones about needing help. Supervisor of the […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Fighting exotics with exotics
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Is releasing exotic insects to control exotic plants, such as the tamarisk, a good idea? The answer depends on whom you talk to. Scientists who specialize in biological control say exotic plants often explode in foreign soils because they have left behind their natural […]
Posted inMay 25, 1998: Tackling tamarisk
Killing tamarisk frees water
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Sometimes it takes a miracle to wake people up to an invasion. Sometimes it takes a lawsuit. For the ranchers and farmers who make a living along the Pecos River in southern New Mexico, it took both. The miracle occurred in 1991, when a […]