The Endangered Species Act will be among the topics covered at the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and Colorado CattleWomen’s midwinter conference Dec. 4-5 in Colorado Springs, Colo. More than 250 ranchers and biologists are expected to attend this panel discussion on how the act can be modified to engage the agriculture industry in endangered species’ recovery. […]
The Endangered Species Act
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
League of Women Voters
Colorado phones will ring soon, and the Colorado League of Women Voters will begin to survey the public about their knowledge of the causes of water pollution. The League has received a $150,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to educate people about how to prevent household-generated contaminants such as motor oil and lawn chemicals […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Dollars, Sense and Salmon
The Idaho Statesman is offering reprints of its landmark editorial series that argues for breaching four dams on the Lower Snake River to help save salmon populations. The series, titled Dollars, Sense and Salmon, ran three days last July, and helped push the dams issue to the forefront of Pacific Northwest political debate. Copies cost […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Continental Divide Trail
You don’t have to leave your home to experience the Continental Divide Trail. Exploring the trail is now as easy as typing www.gorp.com/cdts/ and hitting return. The Continental Divide Trail Society has created a Web page for hikers to exchange information, inquire about weather conditions and find hiking partners via the Forum, the site’s on-line […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Drawing from life
“Weather is the perfect natural phenomenon for the scrutiny of the journal-keeper. It’s always happening, you don’t have to go far to check on it, and you need no sophisticated equipment to study it… Draw the various clouds and cloud formations you see, paying particular attention to their volumes in space, their lights and shadows…” […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
A chance to go wild
Utah has no rivers protected under the 1968 federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, but that might change. This month, the Forest Service released a draft report on recommendations for possible wild and scenic designation within the Uinta National Forest. This forest alone has 92 small sections of rivers eligible for designation, but the agency […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
More ATVers than aliens
You can search for alien life forms near Roswell, N.M., and not see them, but you can’t miss all-terrain vehicles. For the past 20 years, motor-bikers have carved tracks all around 3,530-acre Haystack Mountain. But unfettered roaming may end soon. The Roswell District of the Bureau of Land Management has finished a draft management plan […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Another wild opportunity
The Bureau of Land Management has pushed 180,000 acres of Colorado outback a step closer to becoming wilderness study areas. The agency recently labeled the areas “roadless’ after completing new surveys. The surveys were prompted by the Colorado Environmental Coalition, which said the areas should have been included in the BLM’s 1980 survey of potential […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Down with user fees
Dear HCN, One thing you failed to mention in your feature article on user fees was the Park Service’s perpetual con game about being short of money (HCN, 10/13/97). To get their point across, they defer road maintenance and close campgrounds, items highly visible to the public. What the public does not see is any […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
The public domain should be free
Dear HCN, There is something fundamentally wrong when citizens are required to pay a fee to walk on land they already own (HCN, 10/13/97). Whatever happened to the concept of public domain? The bureaucrats have taken the easy low road by going after recreational users instead of doing the right thing and lobbying politicians and […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
This Earthship crashed in Santa Fe
Dear HCN, Michael Reynolds, the Taos, N.M., acclaimed visionary of the concept of using discarded tires and aluminum cans to create environmentally responsible homes called Earthships (HCN, 9/1/97), may be sailing a sinking ship. And he may be taking naive people with him. I moved from the East Coast three years ago and signed an […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Good comparison, but …
Dear HCN, Thanks for the meaningful comparison of land areas in the Quincy Library Group article (HCN, 10/13/97). I am tired of HCN writers’ comparisons of land areas in the West to small states in the East. They only serve to remind us that there are some dinky states which are similar in size to […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Quincy bill unifies opposition
Dear HCN, The recent article (HCN, 9/29/97) on the Quincy Library Group bill (S.1028) once again implies that this is a divisive issue caused by friction between the national environmental groups and the grass roots. That’s just not accurate. The vast majority of the environmental community is opposed to S.1028. Rather than dividing, this legislation […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Why should locals speak louder?
Dear HCN, Regarding the Quincy Library Group’s involvement in the management of national forests, the American national forests belong to all Americans, and the opinions of those who live in or near a national forest should have no more influence than that of any other American (HCN, 9/29/97). Maybe things need to be left alone. […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Quincy bill revealed as a bad idea
Dear HCN, Finally, the press has opened the glossy wrapper on the Quincy package and peeked inside. Your article, “The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace” (HCN, 9/29/97), exposed some of the problems with the Quincy Library Group legislation pending in the Senate (S. 1028). While we are eager to see people […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Banning the buzz
The National Park Service is developing rules to allow local park officials to restrict, and perhaps ban, personal sit-down or stand-up watercraft. Park Service program manager Dennis Burnett says although the fast watercraft make up only 7 percent of all boaters, they cause more than half of all boating accidents. They also dump about a […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Plumas lake poisoned despite civil disobedience
The California Department of Fish and Game poisoned Lake Davis despite a last-minute barrage of legal assaults and pre-dawn civil disobedience hours before the Oct. 15 treatment occurred. A week after pumping Nusyn-Noxfish and powdered rotenone into the lake north of Lake Tahoe, state officials had collected 15 tons of dead fish, including an 18-pound […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Serious trouble for snow geese
The skies over Midwestern states will be dotted white this fall by snow geese moving south for the winter. But many biologists have concluded that the birds are too prolific for their own good. The goose population has skyrocketed over the past 30 years, up from 750,000 in 1969 to almost 3 million today. As […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
The Wayward West
Patrick Shipsey wanted to take a stand against the folly of Oregon’s “open range” law. It allows ranchers to let their cattle roam and forces property owners to build fences if they want to keep them out (HCN, 11/25/96). Shipsey killed 11 of his neighbor’s cows after they wandered onto his property once too often. […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Bison killing goes inside
Rangers in Yellowstone National Park have permission from park brass to shoot bull bison headed out of the park this winter. It is the first time in decades that rangers may, as a matter of policy, kill wildlife they are charged with protecting. Park managers say the change is intended to control disease, rather than […]