A Forest Service ranger station in Oregon has become the latest target in the wave of violence directed at federal installations around the West. The Oakridge Ranger Station, about an hour’s drive southeast of Eugene, burst into flames early on the morning of Oct. 30. By the time firefighters had arrived, the 25,000-square-foot building had […]
Forest Service building is torched by night raiders
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Agency ordered to study trout – again
The beleaguered bull trout has been given another chance to make the endangered species list. U.S. District Judge Robert Jones ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to review its 1994 decision that the fish doesn’t warrant immediate protection because other species have more pressing needs. Jones called parts of the Fish and Wildlife Service […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Dear friends
Let the waters flow As the days grow shorter and darkness comes earlier, we look for signs that winter isn’t really closing in. Octogenarian David Brower helped us out the other day with a cheery phone call at dusk from California. He had surprising news: The club’s board had just voted unanimously to support emptying […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Stripmining history and culture for dollars
Who owns Crazy Horse? Were the great Oglala warrior still alive, there would be no question: Crazy Horse, who helped Sitting Bull orchestrate Custer’s last stand, was not the owning kind. But 120 years after his death, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has affirmed a New York brewery’s right to market “Original Crazy Horse Malt […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Heard around the West
Did you think intellectual activity at the Forest Service is strangled with red tape? Then you’ve never heard them on the subject of wilderness golf. Forest Service employee Wendy Keeler recently sent an e-mail about her encounter with a group of families in the midst of a friendly golf tournament in the middle of a […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Trying to think the good thoughts about ATVs
An elk hunter dislikes ORVs despite their convenience because they make the country too small.
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
A little bug causes a big stink in Utah
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. CORAL PINK SAND DUNES STATE PARK, Utah – -This might be a little rough,” says Rob Quist with a grin, as he guns the engine of his four-wheel drive truck. Suddenly, we are lurching toward a 50-foot-tall sand dune, wheels spinning in the soft […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Can Madison Avenue tread lightly in the West?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Two men bludgeon a parked Land Rover with sledgehammers. They’re swinging as hard as they can, yet they barely make a dent. This is what Kirk Kirssin of Tread Lightly! considers a responsible television ad. Land Rover didn’t have to show a truck blazing […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
…while ‘Rambo Cat’ obliterates them
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Forest Service’s Alan Vandiver is boss of some 800 miles of roads in the Hebgen Lake District in Montana, just outside Yellowstone National Park. That’s a lot of road, but it’s 130 miles less than it used to be, thanks to a road-ripping […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
This machine makes trails …
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Parked in the back lot of the Forest Service office in Delta, Colo., is a skinny little bulldozer that looks almost like a toy. Designed to build trails, the Swepco 450 is tricky to maneuver since 8,000 pounds of steel balance on tracks only […]
Posted inDecember 9, 1996: Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
Motorheads: The new, noisy, organized force in the West
If off-road vehicle enthusiasts ever build a museum, a statue of former Idaho Gov. John Evans should stand out front, a scowl on his face, and his now-famous saying – “You’re politically insignificant” – on the statue’s pedestal. Evans made that remark in 1984 to Clark Collins, an electrician and avid dirt biker who wanted […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Reservoir unleashes more than water
Biologists braved a morass of mud and fish carcasses in early October while investigating a section of the Poudre River near Fort Collins, Colo. More than 4,000 fish were killed when an irrigation company drained its reservoir to check water gates at the bottom of the dam. Mike Cola, a dam-safety engineer for the Colorado […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Some big birds come back
It didn’t take long for wildlife biologists to swoop down after a court decision cleared the way for bringing California condors back to the Colorado Plateau. A federal judge ruled Oct. 16 that officials from San Juan County in Utah could not stop reintroduction efforts since they could not prove harm from the birds. Less […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Clean air for a price
Owners of the Centralia Coal Plant in Washington want as much as $80 million in state tax breaks to stop polluting the air over Mount Rainier National Park and Mount Saint Helens National Monument. Although the Clean Air Act requires the coal plant to install state-of-the-art scrubbers worth $300 million, officials at PacifiCorp, the primary […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Ted Turner makes a deal
Thanks to a land swap, Montana commoners will no longer be able to hunt, fish or hike on state lands nestled deep within the private kingdom of media mogul Ted Turner and his wife, Jane Fonda. Turner didn’t like uninvited guests invading the Flying D Ranch southwest of Bozeman, Mont., so he offered the state […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
The “tough love’ trial is over
After Arizona teenager Aaron Bacon died of perforated ulcers on a wilderness program for wayward teens two years ago, eight North Star employees were charged with felony neglect and abuse of a disabled child (HCN, 6/10/96). Now their trials are over, and only Bacon’s field instructor, 22-year-old Craig Fisher, is guilty as charged. Although Fisher […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
The way columnist Ellen Miller saw one ’96 race in Colorado
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. “None of the big-city analysts have tumbled yet to what beat Tom Strickland, the Democrat who ran against Wayne Allard for the Senate in Colorado. What happened was that Strickland, a close but not identical politician in the Tim Wirth mode, lost […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
Don’t expect problem solving in 1997-1998
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. How will the elections affect environmental issues in the Congress? One thing is certain, observers say: They won’t make resolving problems any easier. Wilderness: In Utah, the elections seem to bolster the chances of passing a small-acreage wilderness bill. With Democratic Rep. […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
The Republicans now own the West
The morning after the elections, Carl Pope and Deb Callahan, heads of the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters respectively, held a jubilant conference call with the press: “The message from yesterday’s election comes down to two words – environment wins. Voters supported those committed to protecting our environment,” began Callahan. “The nation’s […]
Posted inNovember 25, 1996: Pollution in paradise
The West is just another ethnic voting bloc
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oh, you folks think you’re so different out there, do you? All these seminars and conferences about the Old West and the New West, the changing West, the future of the West, the culture of the West, even the sovereignty of the West. From the intellectuals in the universities to the anti-intellectuals […]