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 […]
Williams almost gets his wilderness
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 […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
An Easterner ponders the West’s alleged wildness
This is a mea culpa. Sorta. A few months ago I published a long piece in The Atlantic Monthly. An excerpt from a forthcoming book, it argued that the forests of the Appalachian spine had recovered much further than people realize – that even the wolf and the mountain lion had begun to return. The […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Can sheep and coyote ever coexist?
Finding a niche has never been a problem for the coyote. The wily predator thrives in dense forests, bone-dry deserts and even cities, despite more than a century of human persecution. Taking a cue from the coyote, a scrappy coalition of conservationists, biologists, entrepreneurs and ranchers in Montana is trying to claw its way into […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Economist discovers what a free river is worth
If the two aging dams on the Elwha River in Washington state come tumbling down, salmon will return to 70 miles of the river for the first time since 1911. What’s that worth in dollars and cents? You can’t put a price tag on Mother Earth – or can you? John Loomis, an economist at […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
The USDA flexes its antitrust muscle
The Farmer’s Union is not the only organization concerned about the concentration of a few companies in the meatpacking industry. The Department of Agriculture recently charged IBP Inc., one of the nation’s largest meatpackers, with breaking antitrust laws by guaranteeing higher prices to one group of Kansas feedlot operators. The same agreement was never offered […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Out of a Hispanic valley: kosher beef
For the Valdez family, ranching in Conejos County – a poor, rural, largely Hispanic and Catholic area of southern Colorado – hasn’t changed much since their ancestors settled there five generations ago. Except that Olive and Demetrio Valdez are now reading a book on Judaism that explains the Kashrut, the Jewish rules governing a kosher […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Dear friends
On to Wyoming As hunters in camouflage toting bows and muzzleloaders converged on western Colorado in early September, the HCN staff worked overtime preparing for the 25th anniversary of the paper, in Lander, Wyo. We’ll have a report in the next issue on the celebration and Western conversation. Meanwhile, to readers that included rancher Jake […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
The West’s fisheries spin out of control
It’s gotten to the point that even car dealers sell trout fishing. Their customers tool around the Rockies in four-wheel-drives named after a famous flyrod – the Jeep Cherokee special Orvis edition. Sticker price $33,000. All the fishing shops, from Bozeman to Taos, offer the latest gear: microporous miracle waders whose fibers somehow breathe underwater, […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
The public was railroaded
THE PUBLIC WAS RAILROADED Railroads and Clearcuts: Legacy of Congress’s 1864 Northern Pacific Land Grant Derrick Johnson and George Draffan with John Osborn. Inland Empire Public Lands Council, Box 2147, Spokane, WA 99210, 1995, $15. 198 pages, paper. Review by Ken Olsen The Northern Pacific Railroad snookered us out of ground it wasn’t entitled to, […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Write-em cowboys
WRITE-EM COWBOYS England may have spawned the Sex Pistols band, but in southern Oregon it’s the Tex-Pistols who headline the Rogue River Roundup Sept. 22-24, the Northwest’s first-ever cowboy poetry gathering. The event features poets and artists in Medford, Ore., as well as a Western art, craft and gear show. Tickets are available through the […]