Save the Sonoran “After five years of watching them bulldoze the desert and pack the sardines in, those people living in Del Webb’s 1,400-home Terravita development will need a therapist,” says David Phelps. He’s a local carpenter and board member of Sonoran North, a grassroots group battling the blade in the booming communities north of […]
Save the Sonoran
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Losing the border blues
LOSING THE BORDER BLUES Since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, exports to Mexico haven’t boomed nor have jobs increased in the United States. If you’re searching for better news on NAFTA, take a look at the summer 1995 issue of The Workbook. In its feature article, “Cleaning Up the Border: Will Sustainability […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Broads say: Take a hike
BROADS SAY: TAKE A HIKE Great Old Broads for Wilderness will head for the hills this fall to rally support for Utah wilderness. From Sept. 17 through Oct. 14, the group with the great name will schedule day hikes for supporters of America’s Redrock Wilderness Act. The Act would protect 5.7 million acres of land […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Better range, better cows
BETTER RANGE, BETTER COWS If you’re a rancher, environmentalist, or just plain interested in how better range makes for healthier cows and land, then come to Delta, Colo., for a Sept. 11 conference sponsored by the Delta/Montrose Public Lands Partnership. Program speakers include well-known ranchers such as Doc and Connie Hatfield of Brothers, Ore., Bob […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Breaking the law for trees
Breaking the law for trees With acts of civil disobedience reminiscent of the 1960s civil rights movement, some people in Missoula, Mont., have begun protesting emergency salvage timber sales. One week after President Clinton signed the salvage sales into law, 15 people occupied Montana Sen. Max Baucus’ Missoula office. They refused to leave until the […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Sharp edge of the West
SHARP EDGE OF THE WEST Jumping into the swim of the alternative press is Edging West, a new bimonthly magazine based in Logan, Utah. Editor and publisher Andrew Giarelli says his target audience includes Westerners from their 20s to their 50s who are “maybe a little irreverent.” The 40- to 50-page magazine covers movie, book […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Organizing takes time
Organizing takes time After eight months of organizing in Santa Fe, N.M., the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE) has yet to claim a single unionized shop. That’s proof that Santa Fe tourism workers don’t want a union, says Art Bouffard of the New Mexico Hotel/Motel Association. But organizer Jesse Case insists it’s […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Hikers find bomb in wilderness
The July discovery of a pipe bomb by three backpackers in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness was thought to be a freak incident. Then Forest Service officials started comparing notes: It was the fourth time someone had found a bomb or explosive in the wilderness in the past 13 months. That realization jarred Forest Service employees […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Nobody’s home in resort towns
Homes, not people, are populating resort towns in Colorado. The Northwest Council of Governments says that the house vacancy rate in Vail – the emptiest town in Colorado – jumped from 59 percent in 1990 to 72 percent in 1994, reports the Vail/Beaver Creek Times. While vacancy rates in towns such as Steamboat Springs, Breckenridge […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Higher pay for hotter jobs?
-If they called them firefighters, they’d have to pay them like firefighters.” That’s the aim of union organizer Kenny Harrell of the Sacramento-based California Professional Firefighters. Harrell wants better pay for federal wildland fire crews, now called “forestry technicians.” Under that title, federal firefighters are paid less than municipal workers and then only while battling […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Pictures worth 2,000 words
Q: When is graffiti not graffiti? A: When it’s very, very old, perhaps as much as 2,000 years old. That’s the opinion of experts who looked at the sandstone wall of Buckhorn Wash in central Utah. They said the human figures and animals were painted by people called Barrier Canyon Indians, although pioneer settlers, explorers […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
No takers for torched timber
Though the Forest Service is selling burned timber in the West at bargain-basement prices, the timber industry doesn’t seem interested. Industry buyers haven’t even shown up at many recent sales auctions in Idaho and Washington. On the Boise National Forest in Idaho, five recent sales drew no takers, prompting federal officials to drop their prices. […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Small town, quirky lives
Though the paper now has a state-of-the-art office, when I worked there it was based in an old church built like a hallway. Cardboard dividers separated Betsy from the interns, and the interns from the bathroom. Our house, “Intern Acres,” had no screens, and no windows in places, just window frames. “That’s good,” my housemate […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
A decadent, old-growth timber baron is chopped down
Harry Merlo was brought down last month by his hand-picked board because he was in the process of destroying both it and the company it was supposed to oversee. Toward the end, the 22-year chief executive officer and chairman of Louisiana-Pacific was a grotesque ruin, bellowing threats to relocate his company across the Columbia River […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Heard around the West
Like many Americans, Evelyn and Don Irvine enjoy camping out on public land. Evening after evening after evening, they sit by their small trailer on the banks of the Green River in Utah, watching the water and rafters flow by. Thus far, they’ve been camped on the Green for 20 years, ever since a doctor […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Tom Bell: outraged by the outrageous
If I were a consultant to the West’s energy and mineral companies and ranchers, and to their politicians and bureaucrats, I would give them one piece of advice: “Don’t get crosswise with Tom Bell. Early on in your ‘process’ tell Tom your plans. If he reacts with a strong no, change them. It will save […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
HCN’s tough underbelly
The first intern landed on the paper’s doorstep sometime in the mid-70s, starting a train of 117 short-timers now scattered throughout the West and beyond. The intern program came with the paper from Lander – literally. It was an intern who drove the truck from Wyoming and helped haul boxes into the cramped Paonia office. […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
HCN interns: city kids meet gritty rural life
As word filters in from former HCN interns, I’m beginning to understand my place in a long and distinguished line of grunt laborers. I see now that I’m riding a wave’s crest, benefiting from past intern suffering. Compared to bygone days, my time is a cakewalk. One change is that the town of 1,400 is […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
The little paper that could
Like one of those gravity-defying trees that grows horizontally out of a rocky mountainside, High Country News has found its niche. Its beat is 10 Western states – the 1 million square miles where so many of the nation’s wild things live on mostly public lands. How do you cover this world from a small, […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Is Altamont historic, too?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, HCN’s founder fights his last fight, yet again. “We’re part of history, too,” says Cathy Purves, Altamont environmental consultant in Lander. Making it clear that she’s not speaking for the company, she continues, “I think it’s presumptuous of us to say that history stops […]