Salmon-friendly agricultural products are leaping right onto grocery store shelves this month. In the first attempt to market produce made with the Pacific Northwest’s dwindling salmon population in mind, the nonprofit Pacific Rivers Council has introduced a “Salmon-Safe” program. Twenty-four producers, ranging from wineries and vegetable growers to apple orchards and rice farms, have been […]
Watch for fish-friendly foods
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Mount Zirkel’s acid trip
Two Colorado power plants are cleaning up their act, but it may be a case of too little too late. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey studying the Mount Zirkel Wilderness near Steamboat Springs, Colo., have found that air pollution from coal-burning power plants in the towns of Hayden and Craig harms wildlife. The plants […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Pressure builds for Yucca Mountain
Pressure builds for Yucca Mountain If the U.S. Senate has its way, more than 30,000 tons of some of the worst stuff on earth will be temporarily stored at Yucca Mountain, Nev. In April the Senate voted 65-34 to amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, thereby designating southwestern Nevada as the temporary resting […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Just don’t do it
Just don’t do it Oregon’s logging codes might aim to protect fish, wildlife and water quality, but they can’t always protect people. A Coos Bay company recently defied a request from the state Forestry Department that loggers voluntarily stop clear-cutting slide-prone slopes above highways and homes. The state’s request came in response to last winter’s […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
The wayward West
Ranchers and farmers in New Mexico are urging New Mexico State University to turn down “tainted” money from the Ted Turner Foundation because the group also funds environmentalists, reports the Associated Press. Russ Miller, general manager of Turner’s ranches, reminds the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Board that Turner is a rancher, too. In fact, […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Uh, oh – the glaciers are growing
Whitefish, Mont. – Bundled against the driving snow of another January blizzard, the regulars stomped into the Buffalo Cafe for their morning brew. The Flathead Valley was on the verge of exceeding the annual snowfall record with almost three winter months to go. The steamy cafe buzzed with chatter about aching backs, collapsed roofs and […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Moving in, as the snow moves on
KELLY, Wyo. – The robins arrive first, though some years it’s mountain bluebirds, with snow still on the ground at the end of March and more to come. Much more. They remind me of how we all announce ourselves as creatures of home. This is true, at least, of the creatures with whom I share […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Heard around the West
Reader Frazier Nichol in John Day, Ore., had a deep thought the other day, maybe the same day he opened his fortune cookie and found a contemporary bit of wisdom: “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” We know that’s the way the cookie crumbled, because he […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Feds learn that a man’s ranch is his castle
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A few years ago, so the story goes, the Forest Service folks who deal with endangered species were taking aerial photographs to locate prairie dogs, and thereby the black-footed ferrets which prey on them. Which was fine – as long as the planes were flying over public land. When they started flying […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Flood bill awash with anti-environmental riders
As Congress rushes to pass a flood-relief bill, lawmakers are tossing controversial pieces of legislation into the mix in hopes of floating them through unnoticed. The bill itself would provide $5.6 billion in relief money to flood victims and ranchers who lost livestock to bitter winter weather. But the worst of its riders could send […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Judge settles Telluride wetlands dispute
The Environmental Protection Agency has won a seven-year dispute with the Telluride Ski and Golf Co. (Telski) over the resort’s destruction of protected wetlands that feed the San Miguel River, one of two undammed rivers left in Colorado. U.S. District Court Judge John Kane accepted a $3.8 million settlement against the company last month, requiring […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Some fear the Colorado is getting nuked
As the Colorado River crests in early June, activists will gather on its banks at a bend near Moab, Utah, where the river opens up into marshes, 30 miles upstream of Canyonlands National Monument. This is where Atlas Minerals’ 10 million tons of uranium tailings are piled – and where the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Dear friends
Feedback We heard from 80-year-old Nancy Coy of Perry, N.Y., recently, who said our “green Christian” story April 28 made her hopeful, as both an environmentalist and agnostic, about the world again. “Since I have insomnia,” she writes, “I listen to late-night talk radio and have to choose between the Rush Limbaugh sort of rhetoric […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
How do you define sacred?
Note: this essay appeared in this issue alongside the feature story. When it comes to sacred sites, what land managers need is a centralized, disciplined Native American counterpart who could cut a deal, sell it to his or her fellow tribal members and enforce it. In other words, the Park Service needs the Vatican, or […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
Mutual respect costs us little and gains us much
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Devils Tower National Monument Superintendent Deborah Liggett first started holding meetings with climbers and Plains Indians to discuss a new climbing plan, consensus seemed possible. But one commercial climbing outfitter sued, and now the matter is in court. Liggett is a 17-year veteran […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
‘There’s a notion that Indians practicing their religionsare less than religious’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Charlotte Black Elk, 45, is a spiritual and cultural leader of the Lakota Sioux tribe. She lives on the Pine Ridge Reservation, 190 miles to the east of Devils Tower, where she began leading a Sun Dance in 1985. Charlotte Black Elk: “I grew […]
Posted inMay 26, 1997: The sacred and profane collide in the West
The sacred and profane collide in the West
RAINBOW BRIDGE, Utah – Western writer Zane Grey once described the graceful sandstone bridge spanning a side canyon off the Colorado River as the only place he’d ever been that didn’t disappoint him. It’s easy to see why. Often dubbed “the seventh wonder of the world,” Rainbow Bridge, at 290 feet tall and 275 feet […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Getting off the road to ruin
Can you imagine a world without traffic jams, potholes or auto accidents? Activists can at the Arcata, Calif.-based Alliance for a Paving Moratorium. Since 1990, the group has been urging people to get out of their air-polluting vehicles and find their feet again. The alliance’s 40-page, newsprint quarterly, Auto-Free Times, keeps the public up to […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
It’s back
For the fourth time, the U.S. Air Force has released its draft environmental impact statement for a new electronic combat and bombing range in the Owyhee Canyonlands of southern Idaho, eastern Oregon and northern Nevada. The Air Force currently makes 7,500 sonic and subsonic annual flights over the Owyhee Canyonlands. The Air Force says the […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Following the salmon
The Northwest salmon crisis has spawned a $150-a-year journal devoted, says its editor, to “the most significant environmental restoration effort ever undertaken in the United States.” Bill Crampton, a fourth-generation Oregonian and former newspaper editor, started the Northwest Salmon Recovery Report in February to provide an independent voice on regional salmon issues. Crampton, who publishes […]