In Montana, where author Norman Maclean was haunted by moving waters, a new coalition of sportsmen, ranchers and environmentalists hopes voters will approve a fall ballot initiative toughening the state’s water quality laws. If passed, the initiative could create significant new challenges for two large-scale mining projects, one proposed for a site near Yellowstone National […]
Montanans take to the ballot
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Land Board bias questioned
Idaho environmentalists secured their first court victory in the ongoing struggle over who gets to lease the state’s school endowment lands. Judge Duff McKee of the Ada County District Court ruled in December that the State Land Board broke its rules when it combined two grazing leases into one parcel, then awarded the package to […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Williams leaves, Montana scrambles
Williams leaves, Montana scrambles The script in Montana will read like it does every election year: Candidates will debate how much of the state’s mountains and forests should be protected and how much should be open to industry. But for the first time in nearly 18 years, the moderating voice of Democratic Rep. Pat Williams […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Catron County wins in court, loses on the ground
Catron County wins in court, loses on the ground They’ve influenced dozens of other counties, been hawked for sale at national conferences and plastered on the front pages of newspapers around the country. Now, Catron County, N.M.” s controversial land-use ordinances have survived a constitutional challenge. On Jan. 16, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Applause for some ranchers
APPLAUSE FOR SOME RANCHERS Dear HCN: I thought the only folks opposed to conservation easements were greedy land developers. Not so – it seems that reader Wano Urbonas of Durango has a “beef” with Jay Fetcher and other landowners who look for ways to keep family possessions in the family (HCN, 1/22/95). I’m definitely not […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Wolf from Canada killed by U.S. red tape
The release of 26 British Columbia wolves into Idaho and Yellowstone National Park seemed a howling success until biologists were forced to kill a wolf after it bit a biologist’s thumb to the bone. The alpha male bit John Weaver during a stopover in Missoula, Mont., the day before the animal was to be released […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
The secret life of wolverines
STANLEY, Idaho – Snow machines finally silent, four researchers walked toward a trap for elusive wolverines. All was still in the thick timber of the Sawtooth Wilderness until a growl made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Pacing inside the log-house trap was a wolverine about as big as a bear […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Facts take a beating on the range
A New Mexico State University press release saying part of the controversial Diamond Bar allotment was not overgrazed has critics crying “pseudoscience.” The allotment straddling two wilderness areas has been home to squalls among ranchers, the Forest Service, the university, environmentalists and politicians for years (HCN, 7/24/95). In the wake of persistent disagreements, the Forest […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Dear friends
Thanks, Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is best known as the home of Fort Carson, the “Star Wars” missile defense, Focus on the Family and assorted “patriots.” But the board and staff of High Country News discovered another side to the town: a spirited environmental community that turned out in force for the potluck following our […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Don’t just stand there: Get arrested
Everybody’s doing it – the Audubon Society’s Brock Evans, former Indiana congressman Jim Jontz, the Sierra Club’s Charlie Ogle – all going to jail for trees and to stop salvage sales. Getting handcuffed and treated roughly by gendarmes. Paying a new, for them, sort of dues. Since our travels around the West put us in […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
…and the words from the meaning on the Nevada range
“We had fed the heart on fantasies. The heart’s grown brutal from the fare.” – W.B. Yeats, Meditations in Times of Civil War “This is a war we’re in. We’re choosing up sides,” thundered Gene Gustin, chairman of the public lands advisory committee for Elko County, Nev. Shouts of approval rose from a crowd of […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Separating sense from nonsense in New Mexico’s forests
Environmentalists in northern New Mexico have a chance to show their better side. Having brought things to a halt in the recent, unnecessary crisis over firewood on Carson National Forest (HCN, 12/25/95), they might now show they can start things that need to get started. The crisis resulted from a lawsuit over the Mexican spotted […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Heard around the West
A man living near Red Lodge, Mont., not that far from Yellowstone National Park, was heading home with a “Road Kill” hot pizza loaded with plenty of extra meat and cheese when he saw what looked like a wolf. So he did what anyone would do: stopped and fed the animal a few slices of […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
One man’s good move
My father is impeccably urban. Except for a stint at boarding school in New England and a few summer jobs in the country – he was fired from one for accidentally hoeing the heads off a half-mile-long row of cabbage – he remained in New York almost his entire life. His tastes, his habits of […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
The thing about the West is that every jerk is figuring out how to rip up the landscape, and the laws in the West let him
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe’s boom goes flat. “The thing about the West is that every jerk is figuring out how to rip up the landscape, and the laws in the West let him.” – Retired East Coast businessman It took several years for […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 1996: Lack of enchantment: Santa Fe's boom goes flat
Lack of enchantment
Santa Fe’s boom goes flat
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
Public Rangelands Grazing Workshop
Learn how to protect public lands from livestock abuse during a Feb. 3-4 program at Arizona State University in Tempe. Writer and grazing critic Steve Johnson begins the Public Rangelands Grazing Workshop by detailing grazing’s effects on ecosystems; the program concludes with a BLM-conducted field trip to examine rangeland health near Phoenix. Registration costs $10 […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
Whirling Disease – Where Do We Go From Here?
Whirling disease experts from around the world will gather in Denver Feb. 6-8 to discuss solutions to what has become a problem worldwide. The Colorado Division of Wildlife and other state and national organizations are sponsoring the event, called Whirling Disease – Where Do We Go from Here? Registration costs $100. Contact Beverly Cline or […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
Headwaters
Environmental activists convene Feb. 1-4 at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore., for the annual winter Headwaters conference. Registration is $60-$100, on a sliding scale, and academic credit is available. For more information, contact Chant Thomas, P.O. Box 729, Ashland, OR 97520 (541/899-1712). This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
Beyond the Rangeland Conflict: The Future of the West
Northeastern Nevada’s Elko County has been torn apart by conflict between ranchers and the Forest Service (HCN, 10/30/95). But there are efforts under way to create some common ground by weaving together environmental values and sustainable grazing practices. The Great Basin College in Elko wants to be part of that change. During the Cowboy Poetry […]