The Bureau of Land Management has given Conoco Inc. the go-ahead to drill for oil in southern Utah’s new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Agency officials say finding oil is a long shot, and Conoco will probably abandon the area. Environmentalists retort that the BLM is playing dangerous games with a national jewel. Earlier this month, […]
The drilling proceeds
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Microbes for sale here
As military bands, rangers on horseback and Vice President Al Gore marked Yellowstone National Park’s 125th anniversary in August, park officials signed a contract that formally opened the park’s famous hot springs to bioprospecting. The deal allows San Diego-based Diversa Corp. to collect samples of hot-water microbes, called thermophiles, in exchange for $175,000 over five […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
The Wayward West
After five years of ambivalence, the Animal Damage Control unit has changed its name. The U.S. Department of Agriculture agency, whose main job is to kill or remove animals such as coyotes that prey on livestock, is returning to its 1948 handle, Wildlife Services. According to a spokesman, the name change reflects a shift in […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
The writer was cynical
Dear HCN, I find the tone of Stephen Lyons’ essay, “How the writer learned he is not very spiritual,” offensive due to its cynicism (HCN, 8/18/97). Apparently all the writer did was look on the surface of things. He gives no indication of having tried to talk with a local person involved in healing or […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Too little and too late
Dear HCN, A little comment about your story on the sacred and profane colliding in the West (HCN, 5/26/97). I’m old enough to remember that when the Bureau of Reclamation was promoting Glen Canyon Dam and the resulting reservoir, which it called the “Jewel of the Colorado,” the Bureau strongly argued that now, people would […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Stop the assaults on wilderness
Dear HCN, Scott Stouder’s article about extending a road on the rim of Hells Canyon brought back memories (HCN, 4/14/97). I guided river trips in Hells Canyon, backpacked through the Oregon-side wilderness areas, and taught school in Halfway, Ore., in the early “70s. His article illustrated the continuous assault on wilderness values throughout the West […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Humility is the heart of park’s approach
Dear HCN, One of the few things Greg Hanscom got right in his article on Yellowstone’s Northern Range (HCN, 9/15/97) is that politics is running the show, and that “range managers, wise-users and Republican lawmakers are all ears’ for any criticism of natural regulation. Unfortunately, he fell into the critics’ trap and declared them the […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
We can’t trust the BLM
Dear HCN, Columnist Jon Margolis concludes that designation of the new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was not a “model of cooperative federalism. Consultation with the state was non-existent, …” ” (HCN, 9/1/97). If President Clinton had consulted with the state before issuing his proclamation, he would have run up against a monolithic stonewall of resistance […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
A cleanup project can’t get going
In 1969, when the last container of radioactive waste from the Rocky Flats bomb factory in Colorado was buried at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, no one really knew what was stored underground in the one-acre landfill. Federal officials knew generally what filled the unlined pit, created by excavating 20 feet down to a solid […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
A town with a desert heart
TORTOLITA, Ariz. – The nerve center of this brand-new town is not a shopping mall, health resort or golf club. It’s 21 square miles of saguaro, palo verde, cholla and ironwood trees, packed so tightly together that you can’t walk through them without getting jabbed. A 30-minute drive northwest of Tucson, this is some of […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Park may get trashy neighbor
EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Calif. – Once home to 4,000 people and the largest iron ore mine west of the Mississippi, this desert community now features boarded-up tract homes. Yet every five blocks or so a few houses show signs of life, and down one street, prisoners in orange jumpsuits have just finished building a new playground. […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
‘Greens’ bulldoze a conservation effort
Karla Player has seen a lot of changes in the eight years she’s lived in Springdale, Utah. Each summer, more than 2 million people pass through this dusty gateway town of 300 on their way to Zion National Park. Most visitors spend just a few hours here, though lately, people are coming to stay. “You […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Dear Friends
The gardener’s payoff The best thing about the rain that continually pelted the West this summer is that gardens grew to gargantuan size. Now they’re flooding larders with zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, late corn, patty pan squash, calendula blooms to color a salad, dill and much, much more. This is the reward we reap, not by […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Excerpts from a New West dictionary
cal*i*for*ni*an (kal’ u forn’ yun) n. 1. resident of the state of California. 2. imprudent spender single-handedly responsible for inflated values of real property. [earlier form: Texan] en*dan*gered spe*cies (en dan’ grd spe’ sez) n. 1. every group that has had a representative address a public hearing in the West: “Ranchers, miners, etc.: We’re the […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Heard around the West
“Welcome hunters!” say the blaze-orange signs on stores in many rural Western towns. Out in the woods, the sentiment is not necessarily shared by other mammals. One bowhunter in Wyoming unexpectedly became prey himself, AP reports. A grizzly bear with two cubs nearby charged Greg Dolph, who thought to escape by climbing 15 feet into […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
How a foe saved the Quincy Library Group’s bacon
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Politics has always made strange bedfellows, but this one was stranger than most. One day last July, George Miller took Don Young into one of those rooms near the House Chamber and did him a favor. Well, OK, it was only sort of a favor. But Miller is a liberal California Democrat, […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
We’re much stronger together
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “Charismatic,” “feisty,” “a bulldog,” and “non-stop talker” are just a few of the adjectives used to describe environmental attorney Michael Jackson. He has lived and worked in Quincy, Calif., for 20 years. Michael Jackson: “I’ve taken part in listing almost every salmon on the […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
I was always welcomed there
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Terry Terhaar worked for the nonprofit Pacific Rivers Council in 1995. She spent 10 months attending Quincy Library Group meetings. Before that, she was a regional vice president for the Sierra Club in northern California and Nevada. She is now a graduate student at […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
My experience with the Quincy group wasn’t positive
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Erin Noel grew up in a small town within the region the Quincy Library Group has staked out as its domain. She founded Forest Alert, which monitored the Lassen, El Dorado and Tahoe national forests. She now studies law at the University of California, […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
The stress was very heavy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Rose Comstock is president of California Women in Timber. She also manages Clover Logging, which has shrunk from about 60 employees to two. The Barkley sale she refers to was a salvage-logging-rider sale that the timber firms on the QLG refused to bid on […]