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 […]
Training and bombing range expansions at a glance
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 […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
A few fish may move a mountain of tailings
Thank the squawfish, say community activists in Moab, Utah. In the latest round of a long controversy, the endangered fish may be the lever that moves 10 million tons of radioactive uranium tailings away from the banks of the Colorado River. Last spring, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ruled that Atlas Minerals could leave the […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Feds propose weak organic food rules
For Colorado rancher Mel Coleman, a lot hangs on a definition. His family began raising cattle on the open range in 1875 and has never used chemicals. A century later, Coleman discovered that people would pay more for his beef if he added the word “natural” to the labels. In the years that followed, Coleman […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Dear Friends
Questions and visitors Gregory Reis of Lee Vining, Calif., writes that he was in a plane flying near New Mexico’s Aztec Ruins National Monument when he saw mysterious “rectangular cleared areas all over the place.” What might they be? he asked us. Intern JT Thomas called around until he found Rich Simmons, a staffer with […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
VERNAL, Utah – Dinosaurs live on in northeastern Utah. A life-size plaster Tyrannosaurus rex, advertising nearby Dinosaur National Monument, stands poised to pounce on visitors as they enter the town of Vernal. The wide main street is lined with hotels, restaurants and gift shops – the Dinosaur Inn, Dine-a-ville, the Dinosaur Quarry. Thousands of visitors […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
High Desert Conference
The 20th annual High Desert Conference, “On the Cusp of Change: Charting a New Century in the High Desert,” is slated for April 30-May 3 at the Malheur Field Station near Burns, Ore. The Oregon Natural Desert Association, Committee for Idaho’s High Desert, and Friends of Nevada Wilderness will host the weekend of field trips, […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
North Zone Volunteer and Internship Opportunities Guide
Three Western states need volunteers to help as naturalists, field biologists and wilderness rangers. Public-land agencies in Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska invite high school groups and college students to get hands-on field experience during the 1998 summer season. For a free copy of the North Zone Volunteer and Internship Opportunities Guide, compiled in user-friendly […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Are feedgrounds forever?
Gov. Jim Geringer will join sportsmen, biologists and ranchers to ask: Are Feedgrounds Forever? at the Wyoming Wildlife Federation annual meeting, May 15-17 in Dubois, Wyo. Problems with and alternatives to winter feedgrounds for elk, bighorn sheep and bison will be debated. Contact WWF coordinator Tory Taylor for details at 307/455-2161 or by e-mail: metaylor@wyoming.com. […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
101st National Western Mining Conference and Exhibition
The 101st National Western Mining Conference & Exhibition will be held at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colo., April 15-18. Speakers include Ronald Cambre, president of Newmont Mining Corp., the largest gold producer in North America, and Rep. Dan Shaefer, R-Colo., who will host a panel discussion on deregulating the electric utility industry. Contact […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Exploring Aldo Leopold’s Legacy: The Land Ethic and the American West in the 21st Century
Exploring Aldo Leopold’s Legacy: The Land Ethic and the American West in the 21st Century will be the topic of the third annual Wallace Stegner Center Symposium April 17 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The keynote speaker is Pat Shea, director of the Bureau of Land Management, who will be joined by conservation biologist Curt […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
The Four Corners celebrated in photos
Images From an Untamed Land, an exhibit by Moab, Utah, photographer Bruce Hucko, will be at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, Colo., until May 31. Hucko’s black-and-white pictures, along with excerpts from writers Gary Snyder, Simon Ortiz, Ann Walka and others, celebrate the Four Corners region. “Since I don’t disclose locations (of the photos), […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
20 years with the Arapaho
Often photographs of Native Americans stereotype them as victims of poverty or “beads and feathers’ powwow performers, says Lander, Wyo., photographer Sara Wiles. For that reason, she photographs Arapaho people in their everyday lives, both in moments of celebration and moments unadorned. “If I wanted to pick out pictures that made Arapaho tribal members … […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
The secret’s out
Despite a court order, a grand jury’s “secret” report on the Rocky Flats bomb factory in Colorado is out of the closet. Anti-nuke activists have had copies for years, and the full report has been posted on the World Wide Web at www.downwinders.org/rocky_fl.htm. Nevertheless, few have been privy to what the so-called runaway grand jury […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Wildlife dollars fund prison
A recent federal audit of Colorado wildlife funding has gotten some people upset. Among other violations, the audit has revealed that license fees intended for state wildlife programs were spent on land for a prison in Rifle, Colo. Each year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reimburses state agencies for a portion of their wildlife […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Locals protest Vail expansion
A long-debated expansion at Colorado’s Vail ski resort gained a go-ahead from the Forest Service, but some locals aren’t so sure they need more ski runs – or the trophy homes they say are sure to follow. Critics charge Vail Associates is using the ski area expansion to make way for profitable base area development. […]