DESERT RENDEZVOUS Restoring riparian zones and passing a ballot initiative are two topics participants will talk about at the 18th annual High Desert Conference April 25-28. Sponsors of A Desert Wildlands Revival: Water, Wildlife and Wilderness in The High Desert include the Oregon Natural Desert Association, Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club and Committee for […]
Desert rendezvous
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Brand new name, same old story
A new group has entered the fray over the Pacific Northwest’s salmon, but don’t be fooled by its name. The first, invitation-only meeting of Northwesterners for More Fish brought representatives from big electric companies, banks, timber companies, ports and aluminum plants to an exclusive club in Spokane last month, reports the Portland Oregonian. There, the […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
EPA tells Colorado to get tough on mine
The EPA told Colorado to tighten its regulations for an open-pit gold mine near Victor or risk having the EPA take over the process. Three years ago, the state turned to the federal agency to clean up the disastrous Summitville mining site in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains when the owners declared bankruptcy and left behind […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Score one for local control
For awhile it seemed as if one of the most potent weapons available to local counties and towns in Colorado would be ripped out of their hands. Conservative legislators and water developers wanted to gut state law 1041, which allows local communities to develop stringent land-use regulations to control everything from water projects to airport […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Grizzlies forego their snooze
Braving sub-zero temperatures to go winter camping in Montana’s Glacier National Park used to have one big perk – no need to watch out for grizzly bears. The bears usually hibernate from late-November to April. But now, say biologists, two or three young grizzlies are on the prowl year-round in the park, pilfering the kills […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Enough already, ranchers
Dear HCN: Just a few thoughts on reintroduction of the Mexican wolf. Al Schneberger of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association is correct when he says, “This isn’t about wolves. It’s about control.” However, I see it as ranchers doing the controlling. They control not only the public lands but every aspect of anything that […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
From the front lines of Idaho
Dear HCN: Mindy Wiebush claims to have heard negative things about activists protecting Cove/Mallard forests and Idaho and denigrates those people (HCN, 2/19/96). Yet she labels actions from corporate vigilantes as merely “hotheaded.” While I don’t know anything about what she is rumored to have heard, this is what I know for sure: All activists […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
The edge explained
Dear HCN: Michael Cain’s question about forest “edges’ is a good one (HCN, 3/4/96). Too much edge can be a very bad thing. When edges are created by large-scale forest fragmentation – for instance, as a result of extensive clear-cuts – then the remaining forest stands can effectively become islands isolated from the rest of […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
How I learned to love logging
For a long time I was a critic of the Thunderbolt timber sale on the Payette and Boise national forests in Idaho. Its real name was the “Thunderbolt Watershed Restoration Project” because its intent, the public was told, was to help salmon. But it seemed like a timber sale since it called for 3,300 acres […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Greenbacks shape campaigns
Dollars continue to plague and divide candidates. For Idaho Republican Rep. Helen Chenoweth, misuse of money has become a potential Achilles’ heel. According to the state’s Democratic Party, Chenoweth’s campaign illegally hired a company she owns. Now, Chenoweth won’t say why her campaign paid $35,000 for rent and office space to her Consulting Associates although […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Is it fix or nix for the salvage rider?
Campaign politics and the prospect of widespread summer protests in the national forests are pushing President Clinton toward dismantling the salvage-logging rider he signed into law last summer. Though the president has admitted before that he miscalculated the effects of the “logging without laws’ bill, his actions in recent weeks have many convinced that a […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Dear Friends
Spring interns The last time Michelle McClellan was in Colorado, she woke up in a pasture near Rocky Mountain National Park to a bellowing herd of cows trying to maneuver around her tent. Her reception in Paonia has been far less hectic, she reports. Michelle grew up in Kirkland, a city of 40,000 close to […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Tactics first, ideas last
Back when I was a college sophomore, a disillusioned freshman wrote to the campus newspaper: “It seems to me that this college is all about what’s going to be on the test and whether the professor is a hard grader. Where are the ideas and the passion?” He didn’t get ideas, but he did get […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Heard around the West
First, a quiz: The West is a land of wide spaces, deep forests and infinite skies. It’s an easy place to lose track of (a) your way; (b) your mail; (c) billions of dollars in Indian trust funds; (d) 24 million acres of public land; (e) salmon; (f) your career prospects; or (g) all of […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Monoculture meets its match in North Dakota
Note: this article in one of several feature stories in a special issue about the West’s land grant universities and their extension programs. Carrington, N.D. – Half of all North Dakotans huddle in the fertile, prosperous Red River Valley, a stone’s throw from Minnesota. But John Gardner happily does his agricultural research in central North […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
‘It’s great to ask geeks for advice’
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, What does the West need to know?, in a special issue about the West’s land grant universities and their extension programs. Livingston, Mont. – Dana Gleason, an avid skier, thought he knew how to make a great backpack. In 1985 he founded […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Montana’s outback goes on-line
Note: this article in one of several feature stories in a special issue about the West’s land grant universities and their extension programs. A midwife in Wolf Point needs to know the latest practice for treating pregnant women with allergies. A Native American high school senior in Cut Bank wants to know what a laser […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
My God! Healthy trees!
Note: this article in one of several feature stories in a special issue about the West’s land grant universities and their extension programs. Cottonwood, Idaho – Sister Carol Ann Wassmuth of St. Gertrude’s Monastery wants to be reincarnated as the monastery porcupine so she can keep an eye on the progress of the 1,000 acres […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Taking a stand for New Mexico’s small farmers
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, What does the West need to know?, in a special issue about the West’s land grant universities and their extension programs. Edmund Gomez worked for years on the Dulce, Colo., ranch his great-grandfather homesteaded in 1887. When his family sold the ranch […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Helping a busted mining town back to its feet
Note: this article in one of several feature stories in a special issue about the West’s land grant universities and their extension programs. Anaconda, Mont. – Rose Nyman is wearing an apron and shuttling back and forth between the kitchen, where she has a lasagna in the oven, and the dining room, where she pours […]