SMOG TALK The crystal-clear skies of the sparsely populated Colorado Plateau have become increasingly muddied by power plants, mining operations, wood-burning stoves, and even automobile smog from Los Angeles. From Nov. 27 to Dec. 7, the public will have a chance to comment on five proposed solutions to the problem at meetings in eight Western […]
Smog talk
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
No profit in Kaiparowits Mine
NO PROFIT IN KAIPAROWITS MINE A company trying to open a coal mine on southern Utah’s Kaiparowits Plateau had better take a second look at its numbers, concludes a recent study by the Grand Canyon Trust. The report says the high cost of trucking coal over 225 miles of roads to rail transfer sites will […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?
WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLF? Ranchers concerned about wolves killing livestock should buy a new piece of equipment – a video camera. That’s the advice in Dealing with Wolves on the Ranch, a pamphlet from the Montana Stockgrowers Association that explains the legal do’s and don’ts of dealing with endangered wolves in Idaho, […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Deals and delays for Dixie
After a five-year Forest Service study found that cattle have eaten 94 percent of their allotted grass on the east slope of Boulder Mountain in southern Utah, Dixie National Forest ranger Marvin Turner made a decision. On June 1, Turner told cattlemen to reduce their grazing levels by 42 percent. Ranchers cried foul, and three […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Grizzly plan sent back to drawing board
A recent federal court ruling may delay plans to declare grizzly recovery in Yellowstone a success. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled Oct. 4 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 1993 Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan lacks an adequate yardstick for measuring recovery of the species, which gained federal protection in 1975. Citing the plan’s […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Logging deal struck in Southwest
Some timber cutting has resumed in the Southwest’s national forests, Christmas trees and all. An Oct. 19 agreement reached between environmentalists and the Forest Service frees up about 30 million board-feet of timber for harvesting. The negotiations came after a federal judge in August halted logging on national forests in Arizona and New Mexico until […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Olympic-sized rip-off
When Salt Lake City, Utah, applied to host the 2002 Olympics, critics warned that nearby ski resorts would attempt land grabs. Now those fears are realized: A bill proposed by Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, would force the Forest Service to exchange 1,320 acres of prime real estate next to the Snowbasin Ski Resort east of […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Sleepy St. George wakes up to hate crimes
Dave Hamilton and Claude Schneider were asleep on Sept. 23 when Utah’s St. George Fire Department called to say their bookstore was on fire. Somebody had doused the building with gasoline and lit a match, say St. George police. “This was a hate crime,” says Schneider. “Hamilton and I are gay, and there is no […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Bad luck for New World mine
A court decision handed down on Friday, Oct. 13, spelled bad luck for developers of the proposed New World gold mine. A federal judge ruled that Crown Butte Mines and its parent corporations had violated the Clean Water Act by failing to clean up old mine waste from the site, which sits on the northeastern […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Navajo spoken here
Navajo spoken here When Albert Hale was in grade school, a teacher reprimanded him for speaking Navajo, saying, “You guys lost the war. You are now in an English-speaking country, so you speak the language,” Hale told the Salt Lake Tribune. Hale, now president of the Navajo Nation, wants to make sure a cultural blackout […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
To: Mom from: Wolf 3, Somewhere in Yellowstone National Park
About the last thing I remember, we were standing around that dead elk in Canada, you and me and One Eye and the triplets. You were laying out the meal at the south end of dinner, and I was leaving a message for those brain-dead coyotes on a pine tree. Then there was this loud […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Heard Around the West
Jim Peacock, president of the Utah Petroleum Association, was apparently kidnapped on his way to a meeting with state officials in September. An impostor was sent on in his place. It is the only way to explain why the head of Utah’s free-market petroleum industry, in free-market Utah, would be asking the state for welfare […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Warriors: Navajo Code Talkers
When photographer Kenji Kawano left his native Japan in 1973 for the United States, he had never heard the word Navajo. Twenty-two years later, the Navajo Reservation seems like home, and many of Kawano’s friends are Navajo Marines who fought against his Japanese relatives during World War II. The Navajo Marines, known as “code talkers,” […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
‘Housewife from Hell’ bird-dogs a cleanup
One morning in a town close to Missoula, Mont., a Superfund cleanup pushed into Tina Reinicke-Schmaus’ life with a backhoe. The event transformed her into a “Housewife From Hell,” she jokes. As a social-services worker, student and mother, she already had plenty to keep her busy. But soon she became the local expert on a […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Tables turned on Catron County leader
When it comes to the war for the West, Dick Manning – a miner, rancher and county-movement leader in Catron County, N.M. – is used to having the upper hand. For years, Manning has frustrated and harassed federal and state employees who tried to monitor his 17-acre mining site in the Gila National Forest near […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Dear Friends
A long walk Larry Tuttle called to say he was one day’s walk from Denver, Colo., and the end of his 1,872-mile trek in support of mining law reform. It’s been five months and two days on the road, he says, “but it feels like I just left.” Tuttle reports that he’s returning to Portland, […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
‘All of us feel we don’t have …’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Nevada’s ugly tug-of war. “All of us feel we don’t have the impact, the ability to make changes we had 20 years ago.” – Bonnie Whalen Bonnie Whalen is a computer supervisor who grew up on a ranch north of town and has worked […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Nevada’s most rebellious
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Nevada’s ugly tug-of-war. “(We say) the federal government has to prove they own the land. And they can’t do it.” – Dick Carver Nye County Commissioner Dick Carver is a leader in the revolt of rural counties against the federal government in Nevada. “We […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
‘As long as people are breaking the law …’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Nevada’s ugly tug-of war. “As long as people are breaking the law and getting away with it … it’s going to be tough.” – Jim Nelson Jim Nelson, supervisor of the Toiyabe and Humboldt national forests in Nevada, has led the agency in cracking […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
‘The hate in our country is reminiscent of Nazi Germany’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Nevada’s ugly tug-of war. “The hate in our country is reminiscent of Nazi Germany.” – Guy Pence Last March, a pipe bomb blew a hole in the wall of Forest Service District Ranger Guy Pence’s office in Carson City. In August, dynamite blew up […]