When two grizzlies in Glacier National Park began snuggling up to tourists, the agency brought in a pack of Karelian bear dogs. These black-and-white canines specialize in chasing their fellow carnivores in a very aggressive way. At least one grizzly has taken the hint. A bear biologist told the Hungry Horse News in Columbia Falls, […]
Heard around the West
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Shake-up: Greens inside the Beltway
WASHINGTON, D.C. – When the news leaked that Bill Meadows had been chosen to head The Wilderness Society, everyone called friends to commiserate. All anyone knew about Meadows was that “III” followed his name and he had raised $92 million for the Sierra Club. “He’s a fund raiser,” was the usual comment, followed by laments […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
‘Nobody gives a damn about the prairie dog’
The dirt two-track rises quickly from the river to a ridge of pines. After a few miles the track veers out onto the sagebrush flats of this high desert plain in Montana, and there, on a patch of ground where grass and sage thin out, I spot what I have come looking for: small mounds […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Agriculture, education key to Indian prosperity
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Native Soil: Lakotas garden for health and independence.” In 1994, only one Native American received a doctorate in agricultural science. It’s not as if the country’s Indian reservations couldn’t use the expertise. They encompass 54.5 million acres […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Native Soil: Lakotas garden for health and independence
PINE RIDGE, S.D. – One morning in May 1988, Leonard Little Finger woke up with a slight pain in his chest. But he went to his job as an administrator at the local hospital, and made only a casual mention of it to a doctor there. A quickly administered electrocardiogram revealed a predictable diagnosis for […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Corporate giants slurp up a tiny town’s pure water
OLANCHA, Calif. – Crystal Geyser’s 100,000-square-foot bottling facility sticks out incongruously in this Owens Valley town of some 200 people. In the late 1980s, the company spent two years tasting water from all over the West, searching for a spot to build a new bottling plant. Crystal Geyser, one of the nation’s top sellers of […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Will ‘wanton killer’ lope into Colorado?
EAGLE, Colo. – Wes Schlegel, a lifelong rancher, just couldn’t figure it out: “If my dad and granddad could have heard what was said here tonight, they’d be rolling in their graves.” What he’d heard was praise for wolves, now gone from the Flat Tops Wilderness some 30 miles from here. Schlegel lives about 15 […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Dear friends
What happened? Unlike you, we don’t have a clue as to how the elections came out. Did Bob Dole come out of nowhere to upset Bill Clinton? Did Walt Minnick pull a similar feat in Idaho? Is it now illegal for cows to pee in Oregon’s streams? Do parents have new rights in Colorado? Did […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Dear reader
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. We don’t think anyone has written a book about Animas-La Plata, but we’ve come close over the years. If you want more background on A-LP, sign onto HCN’s Web site (www.hcn.org), where we’ve collected most of the paper’s A-LP articles. If you’d prefer, send […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Maggie Fox, Sierra Club
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “It’s interesting how we see history differently. Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., talked about the settlement 10 years ago as if everyone in the whole world was there. In fact, the conservation community was not there because we were expressly excluded. I think if we […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Ray Frost, Southern Ute councilman
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “I have always been against the A-LP project, even when I was running for a seat on the tribal council three years ago. “The Southern Ute Grassroots Organization believes that the development of the Animas-La Plata project, as currently thought about, is not in […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Stella Montoya, La Plata Conservancy District
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “My husband worked on the A-LP project all his life and was in Washington in 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the A-LP project. He chaired the conservancy district for over 30 years, and now I hold the position. “The La Plata River has […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
What $710 million buys
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. It’s fitting that the story of Reclamation’s last big project should also be a story about one of the West’s last free-flowing rivers. From its headwaters in the San Juan Mountains near the Continental Divide, the Animas River descends about 125 miles south through […]
Posted inNovember 11, 1996: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front
Meanwhile, on the street
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 […]
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 […]