The Missoula-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies will hold its 11th annual rendezvous, Sept. 27-29, at the Teller Wildlife Refuge in Corvallis, Mont. The theme is Bear of the Land, Bull of the River: Protecting Ecosystem Indicator Species. In addition to discussions about grizzlies and bull trout, the schedule includes workshops and updates on regional […]
Bear of the Land, Bull of the River: Protecting Ecosystem Indicator Species
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Conservation and Conservatism: Reflections on clean water
The Montana Environmental Information Center’s annual rendezvous, Conservation and Conservatism: Reflections on clean water, will focus on water, pollution and politics Sept. 21 in Three Forks, Mont. The keynote speaker is Gordon Durnil, author of The Making of a Conservative Environmentalist; the rendezvous also features a flyover of the Golden Sunlight Mine and music by […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Getting Beneath the Surface of Public Lands Issues
The Foundation for American Communications is conducting a conference for journalists, Getting Beneath the Surface of Public Lands Issues, Oct. 4-6, in Englewood, Colo. Speakers include journalists, professors and HCN publisher Ed Marston. Call 213/851-7372, or e-mail at facs@facsnet.org. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Getting Beneath the […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Recycling gets rapped
Is recycling really a stupid idea driven by people too willing to believe that their minute actions can change a culture built on conspicuous consumption? Writing in the New York Times Magazine June 30, John Tierney answers “yes.” In fact, he says, “Recycling is garbage.” Citing studies by conservative think tanks such as the Cato […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Low cost legal aid
The Department of Defense oversees 25 million acres of public lands and 15,897 contaminated sites. This gives the agency the dubious honor of being the nation’s leading polluter, says the Project for Participatory Democracy, an initiative of the San Francisco-based Tides Center. Citing the government’s poor record on clean-up, the group has produced a legal […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Bear with us
If you’re a hiker or angler in black bear or grizzly territory, a modest little handbook, Bear Aware: Hiking and Camping in Bear Country, could save your life. It concisely explains the bear essentials of coexistence, such as staying alert in the outback, venturing out only with a large group, sticking to the trail and […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Two reports set the stage for Sierra Nevada’s future
The Sierra Nevada is a patchwork of dwindling old growth, imperiled species and degraded lakes, streams and rivers. But the seedbeds of its salvation are still intact, according to two reports released this summer, one by a group of scientists, the other by a regional business council. Both conclude there are many reasons for hope […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Tourism summit
Are herds of tourists just the latest scourge on public lands? Heads of the tourism industry and public-lands managers will converge on Lake Tahoe, Calif., Sept. 24-26 to talk about consensus on such contentious issues as national park overflights, access restrictions and recreation fees. Seeking Common Ground is sponsored by the Western States Tourism Policy […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Don’t listen to bad advice
Dear HCN, Although poetic license and the First Amendment no doubt allow Chris Ransick the right to perpetuate a myth if s/he wants to, still I have to comment on the mean-spirited “Advice for Visitors to Rock Springs’ (HCN, 8/19/96). If people who so freely criticize Rock Springs ever left I-80’s truck stops they might […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Bashing tourism doesn’t cut it
Dear HCN, Ed Quillen’s article on the Disappearing railroad blues shows the West is changing (HCN, 8/5/96), but I must disagree with his inference that tourism brings only minimum wage jobs. Tourists bringing in their $1,800 bikes on $30,000 vehicles are also going to spend millions on motels, quality restaurants, bike and vehicle mechanics, outfitters, […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
On llamas and lousy poetry
Dear HCN, I really loved Hal Walter’s piece on llamas (HCN, 8/19/96). I hope it will dispel the myth about the world’s most over-rated beast. As for Chris Ransick on Rock Springs, he’s full of shit. There is an excellent diner (cum Chinese) on Elk Street. I’ve no idea who Poiesis is, but I hope […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Llamas are like compact cars
Dear HCN, Hey, Hal Walter, take a geography class (HCN, 8/19/96). Juan Valdez lives in Colombia, llamas don’t. Coffee grows in the tropical highlands, llamas haul loads over high and arid Andean passes in the altiplano of Peru, Bolivia and Chile – just a few thousand feet higher than your 12,000-foot Colorado mountain pass. And […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Wilderness therapy is cutting edge
Dear HCN, I am a former staff member of Pathfinders, a wilderness, emotional-growth program which ceased operation in July due to an investigation into alleged negligence and abuse after two students contracted strep A virus in Colorado. I thought that your article on a Utah wilderness therapy program (-Tough love proves too much’, HCN, 6/10/96) […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Logging protests go mainstream
Dear HCN: Last November, I was in the White House, having secured an appointment with the Clinton administration to talk about the salvage-logging rider. I wore the same suit as when I was arrested for civil disobedience two days before – now somewhat scuffed up. We started into discussions about the terrible impact of the […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Whatever happened to letting fires burn?
The summer wildfire season is drawing to an end, but the West is still burning. And despite a plethora of ecological research that demonstrates the value of fire as an ecological and evolutionary force, land-management agencies continue to suppress fires, except in a few wilderness areas or other reserves. Not only is such a policy […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
It’s the grizzlies and the birds, stupid
CHICAGO, Ill. – “We saved Yellowstone from mining,” President Clinton intoned in his acceptance speech, which was characteristically long, detailed and completely devoid of eloquence. Clinton did not say, “Bob Dole wouldn’t have done that”; he didn’t have to. Dole had done it for him in his own acceptance speech, which was more eloquent, almost […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Grazing bill returns for another round
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another new article titled “Multicultural grazing boards off to a good start.” If Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has his way, the Resource Advisory Committees, which just turned one year old, will never reach their second birthday. A bill sponsored by […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Multicultural grazing boards off to a good start
DENVER, Colo. – Call them the cowboy and the lady. He is T. Wright Dickinson, tall, rail-thin, a third-generation rancher living on 35,000 high-desert acres in northwestern Colorado. She is Kathy Carlson, dressed in an ankle-length dress, glasses framing a tanned face, a veteran of Washington, D.C., politics for the National Wildlife Federation who moved […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Bombs go up in smoke in a rural Utah county
On the morning of Aug. 22, giant furnaces sparked into life in Tooele County, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. Inside the infernos, M-55 nerve gas rockets were reduced to shrapnel and smoke. But three days later, the destruction of chemical weapons abruptly halted after traces of nerve gas were detected in a […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 1996: The filthy West: Toxics pour into our air, water, land
Opal Creek is blowing in the (political) wind
Since the wilderness battles of the early 1980s, Oregon forest activists have fought to protect Opal Creek, a lovely, nearly intact old-growth watershed on the western flank of the Oregon Cascades. Last spring, Sen. Mark Hatfield announced that he would at last grant their wish. The Oregon Republican, retiring next January after 30 years in […]