Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to a back-page opinion piece, “We can have electricity, jobs and clean air.” Hard by the Colorado River at Laughlin, Nev., Southern California Edison’s controversial Mohave power plant began generating electricity in 1971. Its 500-foot stack throws a giant plume into […]
A giant plume into the air
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
We can have electricity, jobs and clean air
There are big problems with the Mohave power plant. From the Hopi mesas of my people, we notice it all the time. Until the late 1960s we could see the sacred San Francisco Peaks clearly from my home near old Oraibi on the Hopi mesas, 80 miles away as the crow flies. It is the […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Heard around the West
There’s hot news from Anchorage, Alaska, and many hikers are going to recoil in horror when they hear it. The red pepper spray that’s supposed to ward off black bears may do just the opposite – attract them. Evidence so far is anecdotal, but U.S. Geological Survey researcher Tom Smith (contact him on the Internet […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Mined-over region resents EPA scrutiny
For 15 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has removed mine tailings, covered contaminated lawns and monitored people’s blood for lead and other dangerous heavy metals found within the 21-mile-long Bunker Hill Superfund Site in northern Idaho. Now, with the work nearly done, the federal agency has set its sights on something much bigger – the […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
The New West spawns a new kind of range war
DURANGO, Colo. – The lawyers outnumber the sheep in the Shenandoah sheep war. It started one morning about three years ago, when Edward and Adalou Dunne woke up to find eight sheep grazing in the yard next to theirs in Shenandoah, a subdivision of large lots where green pastures roll and dirt roads unwind in […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Some tourists opt for a dose of reality
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”‘Ecotourism’ – a gold mine for ailing agencies?“ While many of us bolt to the beach or head for the hills when vacation time rolls around, a few groups around the West have discovered that some crave a […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
‘Ecotourism’ – a gold mine for ailing agencies?
STEAMBOAT, Ore. – They huddled under the massive rock overhang, sheltered from the rain, trying to imagine the Native American shaman who painted these pictographs 150 years ago. On the rock’s belly are drawings of riders on horseback and strange ghostlike people. Some are clearly visible, but many are not, due to years of vandalism […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
River heritage plan sent downstream
PAONIA, Colo. – When water engineer Jeff Crane learned about a new program called the American Heritage Rivers Initiative, he thought he’d found something his community could rally behind. Over the past three years, Crane has been working to build consensus among landowners, fruit farmers and gravel miners along western Colorado’s North Fork of the […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Dear Friends
A class act Circulation staffer Kathy Martinez recently traveled to Las Vegas to attend the USPS National Postal Forum; there she learned that HCN is a very small fish in a very large ocean. According to Kathy, “When I told one postal official how much we spend on postage a year, she just turned away […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Staffers say their agency betrayed the land
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. In his 28 years of working for the U.S. Forest Service, fish biologist Jim Cooper never thought of himself as an idealist. Even when he was starting out, he says, he thought a rising human population would continually stress the national forests, yet he […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
He found spotted owls; the agency ignored them
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Peter Galvin: “I had cancer when I was 15, and it very much changed my life. I had been captain of my junior varsity basketball team, but after that, things just changed. I didn’t want to go out and get drunk on Friday night. […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Modern ‘civilization’ is a doomsday machine
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Kieran Suckling: “Our critics talk about “consensus.” But a consensus of who? When we had a timber injunction shutting down all logging in the Southwest, a poll by a professional polling company found that every sector of the public supported a complete ban on […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
In pursuit of crooked feds
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Robin Silver: “The key to our success? Corrupt government officials and a Justice Department that condones corruption. Even conservative judges are consistently recognizing that the federal land managers are criminals. We’re dealing with dishonest federal officials. Period. “We also prepare compulsively. We’ve got a […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Note: see end of this feature story for a list of four accompanying sidebar articles. PHOENIX, Ariz. – It sounds like the set-up for a joke: A doctor, a philosopher and a biologist go into the woods, and … But nine years later, the coming together of these three environmental activists has staggered the timber […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
University of Colorado’s Wirth Chair
In Colorado, all media, from newspapers to radio stations, that have covered the issue of sustainability are eligible to apply for a media award from the University of Colorado’s Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy. Winners get the chance to pick the recipient of a $1,500 graduate student scholarship. Grants of $1,500 are […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Glacier National Park
Are you planning to camp in Glacier National Park this summer? Better think ahead. Beginning March 15, reservations for the Fish Creek and St. Mary’s campgrounds can be made up to three months in advance by calling 800/365-CAMP. Nightly fees will be $15 at both campgrounds, whether or not campers have a reservation. Write Glacier […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
18-month moratorium
The Forest Service will hold 25 open houses about its proposed 18-month moratorium on building new roads in the nation’s forests. Meetings will be held in California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming, beginning March 17. For information about where and when, call Alan Polk at 202/205-1134 or check the Web at […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Wilderness, not horses, is the issue
Dear HCN, Lynne Bama’s story does a good job of explaining some of the controversy surrounding management of feral horses (HCN, 3/2/98). In regard to the Pryor Mountains, however, she did not capture the most important issue: how the horses and their management might impact wilderness designation for the range. The Pryors are a fabulous […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Watch out for Fido
Dear HCN, Hugh B. McKeen cried wolf in the article “Wolves go wild in the Southwest” (HCN, 2/16/98). McKeen, who is convinced that people have been killed by wolves, predicts a child will be killed by Mexican wolves within a few years. That dog don’t hunt. Compared to Fido, the family pet, wolves are saints. […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Ranchettes aren’t all bad
Dear HCN, My pet peeve is the anti-ranchette bias I see in almost every issue of High Country News. Granted, some ranchettes, just as some ranches, are environmental destabilizers, but most probably serve to increase environmental awareness, just as most ranchers who work with the land amid weather and wildlife have far more respect for […]