Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “I came off the mountain saying probably the best way to save this place is to build an observatory …” Conrad Istock is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the U of A’s College of Arts […]
The diplomat ecologist
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
The Apache activist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “The university, I’d say, is like a tin man. No heart. They don’t have no feeling.” Ola Cassadore Davis grew up on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, about 30 miles from Mount Graham. Her father was a medicine […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
The administrator
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “The reality of this project is that it was never a threat to the red squirrel.” Michael Cusanovich, vice president for research and graduate studies at the U of A, oversees a $220 million annual research budget. He’s […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
Making a mountain into a starbase
The long, bitter battle over Mount Graham
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Dan Beard resigns
With the surprise resignation June 12 of Dan Beard as director of the Bureau of Reclamation, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has lost one of his most effective lieutenants (HCN, 3/20/95). Although Western water has long been a contentious issue, his reign has been quiet, especially when compared with grazing and logging. In announcing his departure, […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Mining reform might sneak back
While other environmental debates rage in Congress, negotiations over reform of the 1872 Mining Law are quietly proceeding behind closed doors in the Senate. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., is at the center of the give-and-take. In March, Campbell and Sen. Bennett Johnston, D-La., introduced a bill, S. 639, that they said is almost identical […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
When Tuttle walks, will they listen?
Larry Tuttle, director of the nonprofit Center for Environmental Equity, left his Oregon home on May 10 to go for a walk – an 1,872 mile walk. The mileage represents Tuttle’s impetus for taking to the West’s highways – to support reform of the 1872 General Mining Law. “Pending congressional mining reform is a sham, […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
L-P’s problems mount
Officials at Lousiana-Pacific expected the worst and they got it. On July 16 the company and two former managers of its Olathe, Colo., waferboard plant were indicted on 56 counts including conspiracy, fraud and violation of environmental laws. Federal prosecutors and EPA criminal investigators charge that plant managers tampered with an emissions monitor in Olathe, […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Summitville mine boss indicted
The former environmental manager of Colorado’s bankrupt Summitville mine, one of the worst and most expensive environmental disasters in Colorado history, was indicted June l6 on 35 charges of conspiracy, felony violations of the Clean Water Act, and two counts of falsifying records. EPA investigators charge that in l990 mid-level manager Tom Chisholm knowingly discharged […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Wolves bring Yellowstone to vivid life
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – Dawn … low clouds … swollen river. Like a field of dark toadstools the herds of resting bison take shape across the water. Above them on the grassy benches elk begin to move – cows and calves, a few of the very young ones still hobbling. Geese fly down the […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Heard Around the West
The Missoulian, a Montana daily, ran an intriguing Help Wanted: “Sheepherder with miniumum of 30 days’ experience. Attends sheep grazing on open range, herds sheep using trained dogs. Guards flocks from predators and from eating poisonous plants … Food, housing, tools, supplies and equipment provided. Hours variable, on call 24 hours, 7 days … One […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Xerox copiers and black helicopters
In early June, Congressman Scott McInnis, a Republican from Colorado, materialized at the Interior Department building in Washington, D.C., and demanded immediate entrance. Unfortunately for the course of history, he had forgotten his photo I.D. and it took him and the reporter he had in tow 10 minutes to get past the guards. (His forgetfulness […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front: Sell It or Save It?
… And Daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County, Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay? Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking, Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away. — John Prine The early years of my life were spent in southern West Virginia. Dad […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Salvage logging yields logs and controversy
BOISE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho – Two years after an award-winning salvage harvest of burned timber, a half-dozen former log-storage areas along Little Rattlesnake Creek look like open wounds. Only a few wisps of grass cling to acres of disturbed ground littered with broken branches, ashes and partly burned wood. Gritty soils bleed directly into the […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
As landfills tighten up, midnight dumpers spread out
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Some people hiking through Verde Valley in central Arizona stumble upon a spot that just doesn’t smell the way a piûon-juniper forest should. A strong chemical odor fills the air and there’s a large, wet blotch on the otherwise dry ground. After testing the soil, the U.S. Forest Service determines that somebody […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Salvage logging wounded but not dead
In his first veto, President Clinton derailed a plan to double salvage logging over the next two years and exempt livestock grazing on national forests from environmental laws. The Rescissions Bill combined $16.4 billion in cuts, mostly from existing social programs, as well as $7.3 billion from aid to Oklahoma City and areas in California […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Ski resort flops in midst of land boom
Once considered a done deal, a planned ski resort near Steamboat Springs, Colo., suffered a major setback in early June when the principal investor pulled out. Houston-based spokesman Jack Crumpler said the decision by Mitchell Energy to “no longer participate in the funding and active development” of Lake Catamount doesn’t kill the resort. But it […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Battle likely over Utah wilderness
As expected, Utah’s Republican delegation has introduced a wilderness bill covering portions of the state’s spectacular canyon country. And as expected, Utah environmentalists hate it. HR 1745 designates wilderness in 49 areas, totaling 1.8 million acres. Most areas are small parcels, ranging between 7,000 and 90,000 acres. The largest include Desolation Canyon on the Green […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Dear Friends
Skipped issue Librarians especially should note that there will be no July 10 issue. This annual break allows readers to catch up on articles they haven’t read, and to get out into the great outdoors while it is still great. Getting into the higher outdoors is difficult around Paonia. Kebler Pass, which links us to […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Lettie Hellman
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Colorado’s prison slayer. Lettie Hellman is a native of Colorado’s Western Slope. Since the mid-1980s she has promoted prisons for Delta County. Her husband, Bill, also a proponent of prisons, runs an auto dealership in the town of Delta, population 4,000. “I’m not crazy […]