WASHINGTON, D.C. – Now that government has become show business, one must classify political activities not according to ideology, party or faction but by genre. Is the senator (president, governor, whatever) wearing the smiling comedy face today, or the gloomier mask of the drama? Sometimes, though, there’s little doubt, as is the case with the […]
Utah’s bumbling obscures a valid complaint
Posted inSeptember 1, 1997: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
Tribe hopes to dam its way to jobs
For decades, the Uinta Mountains have been seen as a watering can for swelling suburbs and thirsty croplands in northern Utah. Under the Central Utah Project (CUP), a massive, 40-year effort to capture Utah’s share of Colorado River Basin water, snowmelt from the Uintas has been dammed, plumbed and piped to cities along the Wasatch […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 1997: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
An Indian casino would sit on ancient graves
On Arizona’s Tohono O’odham Reservation, some residents want to make money on the ruins of an ancestral village – literally. A year ago, the tribal council agreed to construct a new gambling casino near a freeway exit 10 miles south of Tucson. But there’s a hitch: The site, Punta de Agua, is thought to contain […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 1997: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
What’s underneath the Staircase?
With a pen stroke last year, President Clinton put to rest a decades-old conflict between extraction and conservation. He established the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and the threat of coal and oil development on southern Utah’s remote Kaiparowits Plateau blew away. So most people thought. But on June 6, Conoco Inc., the largest subsidiary of […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 1997: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
BLM gives trespassing farmers a break
Twin Falls, Idaho – When his boss here at the Bureau of Land Management made a personal business deal with a farmer cited for plowing up public land, Mike Austin, 52, thought he was doing the right thing by reporting a conflict of interest. Now he says he’s being punished for it. Austin, a realty […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 1997: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
Dear friends
Corrections Richard Millet, executive vice president of Denver operations at Woodward-Clyde, tells us that Robert (not Bill) Moran was employed as a part-time geochemist at his company, so he was not head geologist, as reported by HCN staffer Heather Abel in her lead story about “mining’s corporate nomads’ June 23. He also says that the […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 1997: Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
Radioactive waste from Hanford is seeping toward the Columbia
RICHLAND, Wash. – Casey Ruud and John Brodeur have always stood out in Hanford’s take-no-risks nuclear culture. The safety auditor and the geophysicist made powerful enemies when they uncovered major safety problems a decade ago at the nation’s largest plutonium bomb factory, located deep in rural southeastern Washington. Then in 1994, at the prodding of […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Don’t blame women
Northwest Environment Watch in Seattle, Wash., isn’t very big at 1,400 members and five staffers, but its reach is ambitious. In less than four years it has published five reports, including The Car in the City, Stuff, and the latest and perhaps most provocative, Misplaced Blame: The Real Roots of Population Growth, by Alan Durning, […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
5.7, 5.7, 5.7 …
The rallying cry “5.7 million acres’ has become well known in Utah as the amount of wilderness pushed by a coalition of environmental groups. But because the proposal for wilderness preservation on Bureau of Land Management land was created 10 years ago, says Kevin Walker, a staffer with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a fresh […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Working ranches
The Sonoran Institute, a Tucson, Ariz.-based nonprofit, wants to help ranchers save agricultural lands. Its new illustrated handbook, Preserving Working Ranches in the West, says every four minutes, an acre of working land in Colorado is lost to development. Sonoran Institute spokesman Jon Shepard says ranchers in Arizona’s San Rafael Valley are finding economically viable […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
A Colville Valley homecoming
In the early 1800s, when Europeans first made their way into the Northwest, Washington’s Colville Valley turned into a melting pot. Canadian, Iroquois and Cree trappers joined the Salish, followed by Jesuit missionaries, Hawaiians and Scottish, Irish and French-Canadian fur traders in peaceful settlements along the Columbia River. To explore the blending of cultures in […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Bear myths
-Human sexual activity,” claims a Forest Service brochure titled Backpacking, “attracts bears.” “I’ve never found any studies on the topic,” counters Alaskan author Dave Smith in his new paperback book, Backcountry Bear Basics: The Definitive Guide to Avoiding Unpleasant Encounters. “If you think about it, we’re often told to make noise to avoid surprising bears; […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
The Quivira Coalition
Southern New Mexico is best known as a battleground between environmentalists and wise users. Now, two conservationists and a rancher have founded a coalition to show a third way. The group is based in Santa Fe, but its example is Jim Winder’s Double Lightning Ranch near Nutt, N.M. The coalition’s first 16-page newsletter, The Quivira […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Celebrate Mono Lake
As water returns to California’s Mono Basin, the nonprofit Mono Lake Committee is getting ready for a Restoration Days celebration, Aug. 29-Sept. 1. The four-day event is a chance for visitors to explore, discover, and help preserve the basin, says Kay Ogden, committee spokeswoman. The documentary film The Battle for Mono Lake. premieres Aug. 29, […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Cold weather crowds
Winter is becoming like summer in the greater Yellowstone area, at least if you’re talking about crowds. The past two decades have seen a rising tide of winter visitors, especially snowmobilers and skiers, and with them new concerns for agency managers. This flood of visitors threatens both the health of the wilderness areas and the […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Unimpressed with jetboats
Dear HCN, I was encouraged by your article on “thrillcraft” since jetboats have increased dramatically in recent years on the Colorado River in the Moab area (HCN, 8/4/97). After numerous complaints from concerned citizens (mostly swimmers using local beaches), a meeting was held by the Grand County Council. The matter at hand was whether to […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Plum Creek hasn’t changed
Dear HCN, I’d like to comment on the article about Habitat Conservation Plans, in which biologist Lorin Hicks says that his company, Plum Creek Timber, began changing its timber management philosophy in 1990 and is working to become environmentally responsible (HCN, 8/4/97). I’m a logger/conservationist who lives near Plum Creek’s hometown, Columbia Falls, Mont., and […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Bad blood over good sheep
-I’ve had it with the land-grant system. They don’t care about people. They care about money, power, profits and greed,” charges Lyle McNeal, founder of Utah State University’s Navajo Sheep Project, which brought traditional Churro sheep back from the brink of extinction (HCN, 5/1/95). Now, the Navajo Sheep Project is in the process of becoming […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Bombs tested in Nevada
The Department of Energy is worried that its nuclear bombs won’t blow up. So on July 2, it performed the first in a series of underground detonations at its Nevada Test Site, a 1,350 square-mile area in Nye County, northwest of Las Vegas. The Department of Energy insists the tests are safe and necessary, but […]
Posted inAugust 18, 1997: The West that was, and the West that can be
Dombeck shakes up agency
Forest Service Chief Michael Dombeck announced Aug. 8 that he will move some of the agency’s top managers. In the coming months, two of the West’s most spotlighted regional foresters will shuffle off the map. Hal Salwasser, regional forester for Montana, northern Idaho and North Dakota since 1995, is headed to Berkeley, Calif., to run […]