INSIDE THE GLITTER Carmen Rios: My mother had 16 kids, 12 of us are still living, and she worked outside the house too! So we’re used to working. Carmen Rios, 21, is a bus girl and occasional hostess in Reno, Nev., where she often puts in double shifts. You can learn about her life, and […]
Inside the glitter
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Restoring a watershed
RESTORING A WATERSHED As part of a cooperative effort to restore Idaho and Washington’s polluted Spokane-Coeur d’Alene watershed, the Sierra Club has created a colorful map of the drainage. The region needs help: mining has left pollution and aquifer contamination; logging and farming have eroded soil. The group’s advice includes cleaning up mine wastes, preventing […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Cows aren’t bad, they’re terrible
Dear HCN, I appreciated the issue on recreational impacts, but have a question regarding Mindy Sandler’s essay on her experiences as a wilderness ranger (HCN, 9/4/95). Being a former backcountry ranger myself, and having noticed an increase in litter, fire rings, etc., in my wanderings this summer, I read her account with some interest. Sadly, […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Save invective for the trash can
Dear HCN, John Dougherty’s examination of the circuitous events surrounding the University of Arizona’s Mount Graham International Observatory project (HCN, 7/24/95) was very informative. I was appalled, however, by the quote from Robin Silver (The Southwest Center for Biological Diversity) that administrators and researchers supporting this project are “whores.” Such malicious rhetoric is counterproductive to […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Speedy action on telescopes ultimately harmed project
Dear HCN, One point which was not clear to your readers regarding the Mount Graham story (HCN, 7/24/95) was that the scientific justification for all three of the proposed telescopes on Mount Graham was tragically unclear to a Congress accustomed to legislating by riders. Look at Congress’ current rash of riders used to legislate major […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Hess and Holechek were wrong on grazing
Dear HCN, The Esmeralda County Public Lands Advisory Committee is concerned with an article by Karl Hess and Jerry Holechek (HCN, 7/24/95) published in High Country News, because we find that some of your information is exaggerated, misleading or in error. This commission even contacted the BLM and Forest Service with requests to determine from […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Judge cracks down on Idaho – again
Two years after a federal judge ordered the Forest Service to remove outfitter structures from the Frank Church/River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho, the agency has been hit with a motion for contempt of court. Filed recently by Wilderness Watch in Montana, the suit contends the agency has been lax in forcing outfitters […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Parks may get control of their air
In an effort to maintain the peace and quiet national parks are known for, Rep. David Skaggs, D-Colo., has introduced a bill giving the Park Service more control over who flies over its lands. His National Park Scenic Overflights Concessions Act gives power to the secretary of the Interior and the Park Service to regulate […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Powerlines prove fatal
Even the protected confines of Yellowstone National Park aren’t safe for grizzly bears. Park visitors Aug. 23 found three male grizzlies electrocuted by a downed powerline in the park’s Hayden Valley. The two adults and one adolescent grizzly were probably killed at different times during the previous two weeks when they touched the live powerlines. […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Williams almost gets his wilderness
Although Rep. Pat Williams, D-Mont., has never slipped a Montana wilderness bill past an unfriendly Senate, the White House has given him a temporary victory. Williams announced Aug. 23 that an administrative order from Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman will stop development on 1.7 million acres of roadless national forest in Montana. The order establishes a […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Another judge says no
It reads as predictably as a Harlequin romance: Rejected by the judiciary, the University of Arizona has rushed into the arms of its political allies. On July 31, for the third time in a year, a federal court shut down the university’s plan to build its $60 million Large Binocular Telescope outside an area on […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Company slips through president’s noose
When President Bill Clinton ordered a two-year moratorium on mining claims on 19,000 acres of federally owned land surrounding Yellowstone National Park, environmentalists cheered. The order did not prevent Crown Butte Mine Inc. of Canada from pursuing its plans to dig for gold and other metals on its already leased claim just northeast of the […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
DIA hears from some critics
Because of a late plane coming from Denver International Airport, a standing-room-only crowd of 150 waited nearly two hours at an air summit meeting in Grand Junction, Colo., for DIA officials to show. Once over the Rockies, DIA reps heard a list of woes from regional airport managers: sky-high fares, unreliable service and bumped ticket-holders […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Landslide kills fish, raises questions
A thunderstorm near Idaho City, Idaho, Aug. 22 washed out dozens of streams and altered the course of the Boise River, obliterating some native fish populations. The rain fell on a watershed which burned in 1994 and which is being logged this summer as part of the Boise National Forest’s “Boise River Wildfire Recovery Project.” […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Protecting the coho
In a long-awaited announcement, the National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed to list coho salmon as a threatened species in Oregon and California, though not in Washington. “Pacific salmon are in serious trouble,” said regional fisheries director William Stelle, in The Oregonian. “This is a wakeup call to the region.” If listed under the Endangered […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Rhetoric redefined
Dear HCN, Confused by the rhetoric of the “Wise Use” movement? Here’s a handy translation: Like the dinosaurs, it’s a species that just can’t adapt. The species in question can’t leap over dams, thrive on freeways, or make a living in a cow pasture. Playground for Easterners. Any place in the Western United States used […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Block that myth
Dear HCN, Soon, we’ll be deafened by the whining of corporate loggers bemoaning federal Judge Carl Muecke’s recent order halting logging until the Forest Service develops an overall plan in Arizona and New Mexico to save the Mexican spotted owl (HCN, 9/4/95). Why sacrifice the jobs for a little bird, they insist indignantly. First of […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
‘Pocahontas’ is a mean-spirited lie
I really didn’t want to do it. But since the national media has made such to do about it – and as an American Indian journalist – I feel it is necessary to get my two cents into the hype. People magazine displayed its special brand of ignorance with a cutline under the photo of […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Don’t worry: Have a Kokopelli day
“It’s a Kokopelli kind of day,” a Coldwater Creek catalog announced in a T-shirt ad. “Spirit lifting, mischief-making Kokopelli is here to remind you not to take life so seriously …” No thanks. I’ll pass on buying the “buffalo on an eco-friendly tee,” the Comanche bow and arrow, the Tapiz range belt, or the petroglyph […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Heard around the West
The national forests are lands of many uses, but not all uses are created equal. Every once in a while, one use trumps another. On the Helena National Forest recently, 22 Herefords drank too deeply from an arsenic-laced tailings pond at an abandoned mine near Helena, Mont. Fearful lest the dead cows poison bears and […]