Join the directors of the Hells Canyon Preservation Council and the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance June 1 for a benefit float trip down the Snake River through Hells Canyon in wooden dories. Oars/Dories guides will pilot the five-day whitewater trip, prepare meals and donate all proceeds to the organizing groups. Contact the Hells Canyon Preservation Council […]
The Western Ancient Forest Campaign
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
California Water Map
It’s not quite Cadillac Desert, but the updated California Water Map goes a long way toward explaining the state’s complex network of water projects. The large color map, published by the Water Education Foundation, shows the location of dams, reservoirs, aqueducts and wild and scenic rivers around the state. The nonprofit educational foundation also publishes […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Outdoor Recreation: Promise and Peril in the New West
The Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado will hold its 19th annual summer conference, Outdoor Recreation: Promise and Peril in the New West, June 8-10. Panelists will talk about conflicts among visitors to public lands and the effect of outdoor recreation on Native American sacred sites. Speakers will include Agriculture Department Undersecretary […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Mine your jewelry box
The Missoula, Mont., group Women’s Voices for the Earth has an alternative to a proposed gold mine on the Blackfoot River: Mine Your Jewelry Box, Not the Blackfoot. The group started collecting gold jewelry last May to support public education and lawsuits aimed at stopping the McDonald gold project (HCN, 12/22/97). So far, people have […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Playing by the rules
When Steamboat Springs, Colo., snowmobiler Christian George was airlifted out of the backcountry in January after being lost for four days, he said he had survived with two cigarette lighters and a candy bar. Next time, he told the Denver Post, he’ll take more lighters. Jackson, Wyo., film producer Sava Malachowski adds a few more […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Partial measurements
Nothing is more elegant and simple than a Parshall Flume. The concrete or sheet metal devices, when properly built, measure how much water flows through a ditch. While water courts adjudicate, it is Parshall Flumes that actually measure out the water. Unfortunately, they’re unlikely to do an accurate job. According to Colorado State University, only […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
All that glitters…
A citizens’ group in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., is trying to drum up opposition to a proposed open-pit gold mine a few miles from town. Royal Gold Inc. has been conducting exploratory drilling on Forest Service land, and a full-scale operation may begin once the price of gold increases. Resident Bill McNeill, who founded the new […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Grizzlies on staff
If the old adage, “Once you’ve studied something long enough, you become it,” holds true, the Glacier Institute has a grizzly bear, a glacier and a wildflower or two on staff. For 15 years, the nonprofit educational organization has recruited wildlife experts and artists to take students of all ages traipsing about Glacier National Park […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Scat Spot, scat
Man’s best friend is helping the Wolf Education and Research Center in Boise, Idaho. Hounds with a hankering for fetching are being retrained to sniff out bear, lynx, wolverine and even rhino scat, resulting in less need for tagging and radio-tracking (HCN, 2/16/98). A trained dog can survey a livestock depredation site for scat, which […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Panel says fish gotta swim
After a two-year study, a group of scientists says half of the Snake River’s endangered salmon and steelhead should be allowed to migrate to the ocean naturally instead of being transported in barges and trucks. The report, issued by an independent science panel created by Congress, questions whether shipping salmon around dams can save fish […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
All is not quiet on the Rocky Mountain Front
Last October, conservationists won a surprise victory for Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front when Lewis and Clark National Forest Supervisor Gloria Flora banned new oil and gas leases for the next 10 to 15 years (HCN,10/13/97). But the story wasn’t over. On Feb. 5, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., introduced a bill to permanently ban new oil […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
A road to ruins?
New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici is trying to pave the way for a six-lane highway through the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque (HCN, 1/20/97). In March, Domenici attached a rider to an emergency appropriations bill that allows the city to extend the Paseo del Norte road through the 8.5-acre midsection of the national monument […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
EPA to ASARCO: Time to pay
For the past two years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been investigating ASARCO Inc. for violations of federal environmental laws. Now the mining company is going to pay. On Jan. 23, the EPA announced that the company will pay $62 million in fines and cleanup costs for its projects around the nation, with the […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
The Wayward West
Idaho has more wolves and one less wolf biologist. The Nez Perce tribe has fired Timm Kaminski, who led the tribe’s wolf reintroduction program for the last 18 months, AP reports (HCN, 3/3/97). At the end of last year, six breeding pairs were roaming central Idaho. The tribe isn’t saying why Kaminski was dismissed. Idaho […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Training and bombing range expansions at a glance
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to a news article,”Military wants to grow its Western empire.” Arizona Military wants increased training at Yuma Proving Ground; long-range renewal of the 2.6 million acre Barry Goldwater Range. California Proposed expansion of National Training Center at Fort Irwin, including military […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
The birth, life, and coming death of a Wyoming dam
WAPITI, Wyo. – After the thunderstorm had passed, the sheer face of the mountain reappeared, looking strange in the evening light. I got out the field glasses and saw streams of muddy water, some of them nearly a hundred feet high, cascading down the ranks of cliffs north of us. Soon we heard a roaring […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Wyoming: The last tough place
There’s a Wyoming hunter I know who lucked out one year. He’s a big man, well over six feet, who commands a room without even opening his mouth. He’s also a mule man. I’ve never seen him ride anything else. He likes wild country where grizzlies outnumber men and that’s where he likes to hunt […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Heard Around the West
During the day, Polly Letofsky, 35, takes reservations at a ski lodge in Vail, Colo., but several nights a week she turns into Fitness Woman, snowshoeing up Vail Mountain as she trains for her dream of walking around the world. She figures that ambitious jaunt, totaling 7,000 miles across four continents, will require three years […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Be careful what you wish for the wolves
Half a century ago, Yellowstone’s last native wolf died with its leg clamped in the jaws of a trap. As a nation, we encouraged the extermination of wolves. But time passed and attitudes changed. Three years ago, wolves were returned to Yellowstone and central Idaho, initiating history’s most popular and successful reintroduction of an endangered […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Military wants to grow its Western empire
Imagine a giant spider – a creepy crawler 10 times bigger than King Kong – that could spin a web across the West’s great open spaces, linking every military training range in eight states. That’s how some citizens and environmentalists view a bevy of proposals by the U.S. Department of Defense to enhance combat readiness […]