Dear HCN, Your piece on the mountain goats in Olympic National Park perpetuates the myth that environmental groups should stick by Park Service propaganda (HCN, 3/3/97). Park officials continue to declare the goats were brought to the Olympic Peninsula by settlers in the 1920s. They were embarrassed, however, when the Fund for Animals unearthed an […]
Greens should not stick to their guns
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
The Hopis have a point
Dear HCN, After 10 years of monitoring the Diné-Hopi land dispute (HCN, 3/31/97), I’ve never really faulted the Diné (Navajo) for their tactics, since I would probably do the same things if I were faced with losing my home (though I cringe at the rhetorical excess: Buying someone a $70,000 home in Flagstaff is not […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Protect it, don’t pave it
Dear HCN: Your cover story on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (HCN, 4/14/97) stated that the challenge facing the Bureau of Land Management in planning for the monument is “to protect the land and make it accessible.” Wrong. The comment incorrectly assumes the BLM is confronted with the same bedeviling mandate adopted by some national […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
‘I felt defensive’
Dear HCN, The sidebar editorial by Louise Liston, “A proud and defiant native,” (HCN, 4/14/97) regarding the recent creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, was disturbing. It made me uncomfortable. It made me stop and think. Liston characterized an environmentalist’s love of the land as a “weekend love affair,” quite different from her deep […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Utah’s culture war continues
Dear HCN, Paul Larmer’s story on the president’s new monument (HCN, 4/14/97) is a pretty unfortunate piece of work, reprinting the same tired and unsupported information that has been circulating around the Intermountain West for the past few months. Most of this folklore is, of course, lies created by the extractive industries and swallowed by […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Marathon Oil sues to get into roadless area
In a case that could set a precedent for how citizen-proposed wilderness in Colorado is managed, an oil company is suing the Bureau of Land Management for pulling certain parcels from a routine oil and gas lease sale. The Texas-based Marathon Oil company says the lands do not lie in official wilderness study areas and […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Wolves have friend in Washington
Wolves may yet howl in Washington state’s Olympic National Park now that Norm Dicks, the Olympic Peninsula’s influential congressman, supports the cause. But the effort hinges on a feasibility study that has yet to be funded. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the lead federal agency on wolf recovery, is already involved in recovery efforts […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Taking range reform by the horns
Almost a year after last summer’s devastating droughts parched the Southwest, Navajo ranchers are warming up to the idea of range reform. A joint Bureau of Indian Affairs-Navajo Nation plan may revoke some 900 grazing permits on Navajo land. This step is the most recent in a long-standing effort to reduce overgrazing on much of […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
No takers for wilderness trip
Last month, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt tried a consensus approach to resolving the state’s rancorous wilderness debate: He suggested a camping trip, but no one wanted to come. Leavitt invited environmental leaders, county commissioners, federal land managers, ranchers and coal miners to eastern Utah. They would visit proposed wilderness areas on Bureau of Land Management […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Timber mill dreams of museum
It’s a public-relations dream: Save an outdated, inefficient timber mill from the scrap heap by making it a working museum that cuts logs for show. But there’s a catch: Hull-Oakes Lumber Co., owner of the 90-year-old steam-powered mill near Monroe, Ore., wants the federal government to guarantee two-thirds of its timber supply – 12 million […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Judge is bullish on trout protection
Pushed by a federal judge, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it has started the process of listing the bull trout under the Endangered Species Act. The announcement was sad news for the governors of Idaho and Montana, who both have crafted state recovery plans for the cold-water-loving species, partly in an attempt to […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Shutdown attempts go up in smoke
-It’s like standing on the dock and watching the Titanic set out to sea,” says Craig Williams of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, a Kentucky-based organization that monitors chemical weapons activity around the U.S. “Nobody wants to listen to us.” Williams is talking about the chemical weapons incineration plant in remote Tooele, Utah, (HCN, 9/16/96) […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Coffee is bad for birds
You pour yourself a cup of coffee and listen for the chirp and twitter of birds outside. But as you sip, you notice the quiet: What’s happened to the songbirds? The answer could be right in your cup. Songbird populations are dropping as foreign coffee plantations “modernize” to keep up with America’s thirst for the […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Utah Paiutes put the brakes on chaining
When over 250,000 acres of central Utah’s public lands burned in last summer’s wildfires, the Bureau of Land Management began its routine land-clearing procedure: chaining. But soon after the BLM tractors started up this spring, dragging a heavy chain between two vehicles to uproot dead trees and create a new seed bed of churned-up earth, […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Rancher shoots for test case
Brucellosis-infected elk are a major threat to Wyoming’s economy, says Meeteetse-area rancher Martin Thomas. Serious enough, he will argue in court, to warrant the assault-rifle attack that left nine elk dead and lots of wildlife-management questions unanswered (HCN, 3/3/97). On March 31, Thomas pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally gunned down elk near […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Heard around the West
From the EPA joke network comes a sampling of signs seen across the United States, the first at a Santa Fe gas station: “We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container.” On the window of a New Mexico dry cleaner: “38 years on the same spot.” And in the window of an Oregon […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Potatoes raise a stink in Idaho
Something’s rotten in Ririe, Idaho, a town of less than 1,000 close to Idaho Falls. At least, the residents who live near the Idaho Pacific potato processing plant think so. “You’ve got to hold your breath for at least a half a mile driving out on the road (by the plant),” says LuWayne Gallup. “It […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Coal-tax dispute may return to high court
Montana is trying to force its coal-tax dispute with the Crow tribe – a case that has been kicking around the federal courts for 19 years – to yet another hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. The tribe won the first round in 1988, when the Supreme Court declared in a $46.8 million judgment that […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
Oregon gets shot at saving salmon
In a move that speaks loudly of the Clinton administration’s approach to resolving endangered species conflicts, the National Marine Fisheries Service will give federal protection to one population of wild coastal salmon but not another. Under a court-imposed deadline, the agency decided April 25 to list the southern population of coho – which spawn in […]
Posted inMay 12, 1997: Planning under the gun: Cleaning up Lake Tahoe proves to be a dirty business
The Craig bill: Calm down, everybody
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ah, for the glory years of the 104th. Those were the days, when Western Republicans filled the congressional hoppers with their dreams for their region’s public lands – plans to help one species or another chop more trees, chomp more grass, dig more mines and maybe even present some of the land […]