A man of words From a cabin in Wyoming, C.L. Rawlins has served as the (mostly) unpaid poetry editor for this paper for 14 years. Now, he wants to call it quits since “editing for non-publication doesn’t appeal.” It’s true we have printed far less poetry than, say, a decade ago, mainly because we tend […]
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Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Federal negligence turns ordinary Montanans hostile
NOXON, Mont. – Until last spring, few people had heard of Noxon, Mont., a sleepy town in the morning shadows of the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness. That changed after the Oklahoma City bombing and the media frenzy around citizen militias, including the Militia of Montana (MOM) based in Noxon. Now, most folks who have heard of […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Heard around the West
Television has brought its own set of icons into our world: O.J. as hero, O.J. as anti-hero; the Super Bowl as football game, the Super Bowl as cultural landmark. And for the first time this year, the Super Bowl as intergenerational Navajo entertainment. Ernie Manuelito of KTNN, the tribe’s 50,000-watt radio station, provided a play-by-play […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Santa Fe ski area growth enrages locals
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Eagle County balks at fourth mega-resort. If the Forest Service were ever to deny a ski expansion based on protests by locals, the recently approved Santa Fe Ski Area plan would have been the perfect candidate. A local 1994 newspaper poll found that 70 […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
$400,000 buys property – and a vote
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Eagle County balks at fourth mega-resort. MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, Colo. – Rich or poor, each American casts a single ballot: one person, one vote. Except here in Colorado’s newest town, where the real estate investors vote and the seasonal workers usually can’t. Mountain Village is […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Ski workers look for a home
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Eagle County balks at fourth mega-resort. Imagine Adam’s Rib in operation. Now picture 4,300 new workers scrambling for housing in a county that boasted five vacant housing units last year. “It’s not clear where the new people would go,” says Cathy Heicher, a member […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Does the Forest Service love communities as much as it loves ski areas?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Eagle County balks at fourth mega-resort. Readers of Snow Country magazine recently discovered a special advertising supplement tucked between stories of equipment and resorts: “Stewards of the Land: Skiing and the U.S. Forest Service, a public and private alliance.” The 15-page glossy infomercial, complete […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Eagle County balks at fourth mega-resort
EAGLE, Colo. – Thirteen years ago, Fred Kummer’s dream of building a mega-ski resort outside this quiet Colorado town seemed like money in the bank. The wealthy developer had won the approval of Eagle County and the Forest Service, despite the opposition of a pesky group of locals. The construction industry was poised to throw […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Great Salt Lake Issues Symposium
A group called the Friends of Great Salt Lake has organized the Great Salt Lake Issues Symposium, an educational forum on the future of the lake’s ecosystem. Speakers from such groups as the National Audubon Society and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will discuss the lake from historical, political and biological perspectives. Registration for […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Threatened and Endangered Species are our Mine Canaries
A flock of eagle lovers will gather Feb. 16-18 at the Klamath Basin Bald Eagle Conference in Klamath Falls, Ore., site of the largest concentration of bald eagles in the lower 48 states. Threatened and Endangered Species are our Mine Canaries includes a photography contest, footrace, field trips and workshops. Contact the Oregon Department of […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Bees need our backing
Bees need our backing Scientists concerned about the decline of pollinators have found something that everyone can care about: food. “If we lost all honey bees in the U.S. without any wild pollinators taking over their chores, the resulting price increases for food in the U.S. would amount to $6 to $8 billion a year,” […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
How they beat takings
HOW THEY BEAT TAKINGS Thanks to A Clear View, a five-page publication of the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C., we have a better understanding of how a proposed takings law in Washington state was defeated. The toughest in the nation, the law would have forced taxpayers to pay property owners whenever any government regulation […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
American Ground Zero
AMERICAN GROUND ZERO “My profession, which is in my soul, is to document things,” says photographer Carole Gallagher. For seven years, she worked on American Ground Zero: The Secret Nuclear War, a book that documents the aftermath of nuclear testing in Utah and the West’s “culture of cancer” through photography and oral history. In an […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Keeping the wolf at bay
KEEPING THE WOLF AT BAY As U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists ship more gray wolves into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho, the agency is considering how it can get out of the wolf reintroduction business. An agency draft proposal says the wolf could be considered recovered throughout the West once 10 breeding pairs have […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Earthtones
EARTHTONES Essayist Ann Ronald and photographer Stephen Trimble want to redeem Nevada from John Muir’s century-old slur that the state “seems one vast desert, all sage and sand, hopelessly irredeemable now and forever.” Earthtones: A Nevada Album takes readers beyond the Muir clichés, although the authors admit that the Great Basin is an acquired taste. […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Miners seek jackpot
MINERS SEEK JACKPOT Despite the depressed market for uranium, Green Mountain Mining Venture hopes to hit a jackpot in south central Wyoming. The companies spearheading the operation, U.S. Energy and Kennecott Energy, have asked the Bureau of Land Management for permission to construct, operate and reclaim the Jackpot uranium mine on public land. The mine […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Power to the power boats
Northwest Republican lawmakers want to swamp efforts to regulate noisy power boats in Hells Canyon. Claiming that “the use of motorized river craft is deeply interwoven in the history, traditions, and culture of Hells Canyon,” Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, introduced a bill allowing both powerboats and floatboats year-around access to the entire 71-mile stretch of […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Of raptors and rifles
Rancher Jim Maitland waded through chest-high waters in mid-November on a rescue mission, but not to save a calf. The creature struggling in a southwestern Oregon river was a young golden eagle that had been shot. After Maitland used a potato sack to rescue the raptor from a riverbank, it thanked him by gouging his […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Jury convicts a grave robber
After a trial full of grisly detail, a jury found Oregon resident Jack Lee Harelson guilty of looting an Indian burial cave in Nevada. Although the crime was too old to prosecute under the federal Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the state of Oregon convicted him on state charges of theft, abusing a corpse and tampering […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Buffalo hunt halted
Fighting their case through federal court, a coalition of animal rights groups and Indian tribes has stopped New Mexico from staging its first public buffalo hunt in 110 years. A federal judge ruled Jan. 26 that the U.S. Army needed to conduct a preliminary environmental analysis first. The state agency had scheduled three hunts at […]