Those who think the phrase “agricultural press’ is an oxymoron should take a look at Oregon’s Capital Press, which covers ag issues in the Northwest with intelligence, perspective and a minimum of hysteria. While the weekly is definitely not an environmental publication, it covers much the same ground in a calm and informative way. Its […]
Not for aggies only
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Bolting blues
The Access Fund, an advocacy group of over 7,000 rock climbers, says a proposed federal rule could kill climbing in BLM wilderness areas. The proposal prohibits “physical alteration or defacement of a natural rock surface in wilderness.” Sally Moser, executive director of the Access Fund in Boulder, Colo., says without bolts or nylon webbing and […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
The government’s planning team for the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is seeking ideas. The team, which includes the BLM and Utah’s Advisory Council on Science and Technology, wants proposals for papers on the geology, paleontology, biology and archaeology of the new monument. Scientists and planners at a symposium in November will assess the papers and […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Ecological Consultants for the Public Interest
The nonprofit Ecological Consultants for the Public Interest, founded five months ago by Boulder, Colo., lawyer Randall Weiner, has already made headlines. On behalf of a Denver neighborhood exposed to a hydrogen-chloride spill, the environmental consulting firm sued Vulcan Chemical Co., which had failed to provide adequate warnings and information to residents. The neighborhood has […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
The Bear Essential
Attention writers: The free magazine, The Bear Essential, is holding its first annual Edward Abbey short fiction contest, deadline Sept. 2. Editor Tom Webb tells us judges want unpublished “quality work with a Western environmental aspect” and that winners receive $100 to $500. For more information, write The Bear Essential, P.O. Box 10342, Portland, OR […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Water Partnerships
As the West’s demands on water increase, so does the need for cooperation among agricultural, city and recreational interests. Collaboration, an idea with increasing popularity in the West, will be addressed July 30-Aug. 1 at the 22nd annual Colorado Water Workshop in Gunnison, Colo. Water Partnerships: Can Competing Users Cooperate to Manage a Vital Resource […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Our role as stewards
Dear HCN, I was pleased to see your feature on “Evangelical Christians preach a green gospel” (HCN, 4/28/97). Too often those in the environmental movement blame Christianity for promoting ideas that lead to degradation of the earth. There have also been too many Christians who have not understood that the environmental movement has been doing […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Coffee drinkers can choose
Dear HCN, I wish to comment on the Hotline item, “Coffee is bad for birds,” in the May 12 issue of HCN. The article left the impression that consumers, until now, could not obtain shade-grown (bird-friendly) coffee. Actually, bird-friendly coffees are and have been available to the discerning coffee drinker. This is an important consumer, […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Are we so shallow of spirit?
Dear HCN, We Americans are really something (-The Sacred & Profane Collide…,” HCN, 5/26/97). We spend a century trying to annihilate the natives so we can steal all their best land, land that contains their holiest sites, their natural cathedrals. Somehow a few manage to survive our onslaught, but we banish these people to hostile […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Pigs can’t fly
Dear HCN, In your article in the June 9 Western Roundup section, Randal O’Toole stated that he “would have each national forest operate autonomously, allowing each to sell its trees at fair-market value. Forests would not be subsidized by tax dollars but funded by their own profits. Ideally, Congress would have little to do with […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Goats don’t belong in Olympic National Park
Dear HCN, I suspect High Country News will soon have its fill of communications about Olympic Mountain goats, but Mr. Markarian’s letter of May 12 should not go unchallenged. All of the evidence he cites in support of the idea that the goats are native to the Olympic Mountains is suspect. First, the Gilman expedition, […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Hopis aren’t the villains
Dear HCN, Hopi Tribal Chairman Ferrell Secakuku announced on April 1 that the Navajo squatters remaining on Hopi land would be given until Feb. 1, 2000, to sign 75-year leases, yet Cate Gilles’ article (HCN, 3/31/97) portrays the Hopis as villains in this sad affair. The truth is that the U.S. government created the problem […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Lakes vanish – and then return
Over the past decade, a 10-mile stretch of lakes, creeks and a waterfall in southwestern Washington’s Lincoln County disappeared. This spring, they came back. Pacific Lake, Tule Lake and Delzer Falls, all part of the Lake Creek water system, are among the watering holes that dried up, much to the dismay of local residents. A […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Get your ash off our mountain
People leave things in wilderness areas: toilet paper, orange rinds, even beer cans. But in the San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff, Ariz., it’s human remains that are littering the Coconino National Forest. Last month, Native Americans in Arizona were upset when newspapers reported that a deceased Navajo woman’s ashes had been scattered in the […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Hanford workers point the finger
Since a May 14 minor explosion at the Hanford, Wash., Plutonium Reclamation Facility, four employees say they are experiencing symptoms associated with toxic chemical exposure. Ten employees were outside the facility in a trailer at the time of the explosion, which was caused by chemicals accidentally allowed to concentrate in one of the plant’s holding […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Cove-Mallard warms up for another summer
No sooner had the courts given the Forest Service a go-ahead to resume logging in Idaho’s Cove-Mallard than activists took to the woods to begin a sixth straight year of protest. Nez Perce National Forest officials responded by arresting two activists perched in 40-foot-high tripods. The June 18 arrests came one week after U.S. Magistrate […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Weighing in on mining rules
When the Bureau of Land Management announced in early May that it would hold forums around the West before changing its mining regulations, both mine operators and mining opponents rallied their troops. GREEN, a program of Defenders of Wildlife, sent an e-mail asking environmentalists to attend the scoping meetings “if it is humanly possible.” Laura […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
San Luis heats up again
The historic town of San Luis in southern Colorado is shaking again from the rumble of logging trucks. After a halt in timber cutting due to spring mud, 15-20 trucks a day started hauling logs in early June from the mountainous Taylor Ranch, called La Sierra by the predominantly Hispanic residents below. The 77,000-acre ranch […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Coalition says: Stop logging watersheds
In 1996, floods and landslides exacerbated by decades of logging forced over 200,000 Oregon residents to boil their drinking water. Now, the Oregon Natural Resources Council and 20 other conservation organizations want the Forest Service to stop all logging of municipal watersheds in the Northwest. Streams draining Forest Service lands provide drinking water to two-thirds […]
Posted inJuly 7, 1997: While the New West booms, Wyoming mines, drills ... and languishes
Petroglyphs and pavement collide
A proposed road through Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque continues to be paved with controversy. The latest round features a standoff between Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Pueblo Indian leaders. Domenici, who met recently with the Pueblos for the first time since proposing the bill in April, says the road would reduce traffic congestion around […]