Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. In the negotiating room, old enemies were trying to get along. But in A-LP’s hometown of Durango, Colo., passions still run high. Jeff Morrissey, a former Durango mayor and present board member of the Animas-La Plata Water Conservancy District, was cited by police for […]
Meanwhile, on the street
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
The rules
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Colorado Lt. Gov. Gail Schoettler’s ground rules for A-LP consensus: * Don’t attack; be positive. * Work to develop a feeling of collaboration. * No legal nitpicking (nervous laughter since more than half the people at the table are lawyers). * Listen to each […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
ARVADA, Colo. – It is a more and more common scene in the West. People who are personal and professional enemies, people who let no opportunity pass to say something nasty about each other, are this morning sitting together at tables arranged in a large, hollow square. Behind them are colleagues and supporters who occasionally […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
What happens above ground…
For thousands of years, water has percolated beneath southwestern Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains to form weird marble caverns with limestone chandeliers. Now, National Park Service officials say a neighbor’s mining, logging and grazing may be altering the delicate chemical composition of the caves’ water sources. The “neighbor” is the Siskiyou National Forest, which completely surrounds the […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Forest chief resigns
Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas will be teaching wildlife biology instead of administering the nation’s forests next winter. Thomas announced in October his retirement from the Forest Service; he plans to accept an endowed professorship at the University of Montana in Missoula. Thomas refused to comment on the political intrigue that has ruled the […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Frequent fliers fleece Grand Canyon
One-third of the air-tour operators in Grand Canyon National Park are breaking the law by not paying a required $25 per flight. According to data compiled by the Sierra Club, some companies such as Las Vegas Airlines and Air Nevada allegedly fail to report their business to the Park Service, and two operators openly refuse […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Environmental laws fenced out
One sentence tucked inside the foot-thick omnibus spending bill could spell trouble for wildlife along the nation’s borders. Signed into law Oct. 1, the provision allows the U.S. attorney general to waive both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act for border projects such as fences or roads. The provision was crafted […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Burning is not the answer
Dear HCN, There is another side to fire as a “natural tool” for achieving forest health. One problem is that we no longer have natural forests, since for the last 80 years, fire has been suppressed, giving us an unnatural condition. I have been monitoring some of the Forest Service’s controlled burns in Wallowa County […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Warty and wonderful
Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ otherwise excellent “Washington Watch” column Sept. 16 contained the following sentence: “Bill Clinton has the aesthetic sensibilities of a frog.” On behalf of the Amphibian-American community, I would like to state that this is an unfair and unkind slur against frogs. What would a moonlit evening be without the musical chorus […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
It’s too easy to blame others
Dear HCN, Jonathan Brinckman’s profile of Senate hopeful Walt Minnick is written with the arrogance that all too often portrays people of the land as part of the problem but ignores very real problems created by growth in the West (HCN, 9/30/96). Consider his thesis: Those in Idaho who care about the environment are battling […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Newcomers turn out to be just like locals
Dear HCN, Your Sept. 30 issue profiling Walt Minnick was encouraging; let’s hope he prevails. But Minnick’s strategy and Stephen Stuebner’s report misses the mark. The politics of the New West are much more complex than the hope that newcomers are liberal, pro-environment, urban refugees. Between 1985 and 1991, according to Census Bureau estimates, 2 […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Casualties of controversy: Two editors’ jobs and a biologist’s naivete
Now that the public has gotten into the habit of regulating bear hunting through initiatives, the issue has become increasingly polarized. That became obvious this summer when Colorado bear biologist Tom Beck stepped out of the hunting culture to write an essay critical of the sport and attitudes toward it. Among other observations in the […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
… comes after two years of arrested development
You might call the 104th Congress a roller-coaster ride for environmental legislation: Conservative Republicans began by attempting to weaken or dismantle many of the nation’s strongest environmental laws, attaching many of their proposals as “riders” on the backs of appropriations bills. But the Congress concluded by rejecting virtually all of the more radical measures, and […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Congress’ 11th-hour moment of maturity…
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the end, and just barely, the Congress of the United States decided to act like grown-ups, creating or expanding about 100 pieces of national parkland around the country, as they intended. But because so many of its members had acted like children, they also “passed’ – well, they caused to be […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Judge sends a message to cows
A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that the state can decide how, and even whether, cows that pollute waterways can graze on federal lands. U.S. District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty said Sept. 27 that the Clean Water Act requires all applications for grazing permits on national forests to first undergo a state review to […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Utah counties bulldoze the BLM, Park Service
A flurry of bulldozing in three southern Utah counties has led to one arrest, federal lawsuits and miles of newly improved roadways through wilderness study areas and the new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The bulldozing, ordered by county commissioners in San Juan, Garfield and Kane counties, is the most serious challenge yet to federal land […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
She works to save the past
Longtime HCN subscriber Ann Phillips finds herself drawn time and again back to a place that many experience as timeless: southeastern Utah. There, with one hand, she tries to record archaeological sites before they vanish; with the other, she works to prevent them from vanishing. The educational consultant turned archaeologist came through Paonia recently with […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Dear Friends
Braving blaze orange It’s hunting season again, and who knows it better than this office? Our neighbor to the south is a meat locker which works overtime this season, thanks to pickup loads of dead deer, elk and, lately, bear. The gang of cats that patrols the alley seems in hog heaven while the animal-lovers […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
A mystery the size of your fist
I am wondering about beargrass. This summer brought such an explosion of blooms to the Northern Rockies it was front-page news – more beargrass than anyone can remember, more beargrass than anyone can explain. So much beargrass that you don’t have to be a naturalist to stop the car and marvel at the hillsides blazing […]
Posted inOctober 28, 1996: Has big money doomed direct democracy?
Heard around the West
At a pizzeria in Telluride, we recently overheard a couple of shopping-bag laden tourists discuss their vacation. “It’s like Switzerland,” one sighed happily, “only cheaper.” But Colorado is not Switzerland, despite the best efforts of Telluride and Vail. The chocolate here is not nearly as good; our passenger train system is just about nonexistent, and […]