A subdivision in southwestern Colorado encourages buyers to build homes closely around the ruins of ancient Anasazi dwellings. California developer Archie Hanson bought 1,200 acres of the archaeologically rich land after visiting the area just six miles east of Mesa Verde National Park, near Cortez, Colo. Now he’s offering 31 “Indian Camp” lots of about […]
Life among the ruins
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
R.S. 2477 detoured again
The Department of the Interior has delayed for a third time its deadline for resolving a dispute over an outdated law known as R.S. 2477. In 1866, it granted rights-of-way to rural counties for roadbuilding across public lands in the West. When it was repealed in 1976, pre-existing claims were grandfathered in, creating a flurry […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Agency kills wolf by mistake
While the federal government was spending millions of dollars restoring wolves to central Idaho, one of its agencies was killing a wolf nearby. The federal Animal Damage Control program accidentally killed one of the endangered wolves in a coyote trap near Priest River, Idaho, in early February. The trap was an M-44, a baited, spring-loaded […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Mescaleros now vote yes
Reversing themselves, members of New Mexico’s Mescalero Apache Tribe voted “yes’ for storage of high-level nuclear waste on the reservation. The March 9 vote was 593-372 for accepting highly radioactive waste, compared to a 490-362 vote in late January against it (HCN, 2/20/95). The project would store up to 40,000 tons of lead-encased spent fuel […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Not the whole story
Anti-environmental anger in northeastern Oregon captured headlines last year when Joseph residents hung in effigy activists Ric Bailey and Andy Kerr (HCN, 11/14/94). But according to a recent survey, 58 percent of the residents in the Hells Canyon region believe “the region’s natural environment should be protected even if this means that some people will […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Governor shoots wolf bounty bill
Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer, a newly elected Republican, recently vetoed a bill that would have placed a $1,000 bounty on wolves shot outside Yellowstone National Park. The legislation would have authorized payment to hunters who shoot wolves outside the park and offered free legal defense for the hunters if prosecuted by federal agencies (HCN, 1/23/95). […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Forest’s real estate urge goes year-round
The Gunnison National Forest in western Colorado is involved in another hot access question. The last access dispute – with developer Tom Chapman – resulted in a land trade that thus far has given Chapman a $2 million profit (HCN, 1/23/95). That trade was made over strenuous objections from residents of the ski town of […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Slash and burn
Many good, green guys and gals were blown away Nov. 8, and bills now in Congress would block environmental regulation through “takings” analyses that elevate property rights above the public good. But legitimate fears should not blind the environmental community to new opportunities for positive change. Voters also blew out deadwood and shook the foundations […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
You say you want to cut government spending? Kick off cows
Dear Congress: Since you say you want to stop wasteful federal spending, I am writing to alert you to what’s going on at the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, where, in 1990, they spent $52 million more managing livestock than they collected in fees. Part of the problem is that the current […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Reward offered in rampage of eagle poaching
Federal agents suspect that a slew of eagle-poaching incidents in southeast Idaho is linked to the lucrative illegal wildlife trade. Fifteen dead golden eagles have been found in the last two weeks in wetlands on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Since December 1992, 41 dead golden eagles have been found in southeast Idaho. All the […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Soft energy may shred Wyoming raptors
CARBON COUNTY, Wyo.- Bruce Morley stands on Foote Creek Rim, the high ridge he hopes to cover with a forest of wind turbines, and eyes the brown haze from a power plant 150 miles away. “Every month this project would generate as much power as a coal train a mile long,” says Morley, raising his […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Study or preserve: Ideals collide at Arizona park
ORACLE, Ariz. – Before she died in 1976, Lucille Kannally willed her ranch here to the Defenders of Wildlife, on the condition that the national environmental group preserve the 4,000-acre patch of desert foothills as wildlife habitat. But the group later handed off the ranch to a government agency, Arizona State Parks, which now plans […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Counties may shrink Utah wilderness
On a frozen night in mid-February, about 300 people crammed into an art gallery in Salt Lake City for an old-fashioned rally. While writer Terry Tempest Williams spoke about the need for wild places, a jar was passed among the crowd until it was stuffed with bills; sign-up sheets were filled with names of people […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Dear Friends
Spring visitors Two roving college classes each spent several hours at High Country News listening to talks about the West and asking questions about this nonprofit newspaper. They wanted to know how to cover a vast area with no staff, and in particular, more about Glen Canyon Dam, which both groups had just toured. By […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
So far, it is the rivers of the region that have suffered
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The fight for Reclamation. So far, it is the rivers of the region that have suffered the greatest change in canyon country. This is not the fault of Major John Wesley Powell, a largely self-taught naturalist, geologist and ethnologist. Powell went on to organize […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
One project seems like the same old BuRec
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The fight for Reclamation. Although the Bureau of Reclamation says it is now a water-conserver, and not a dam-builder, one ghost from the past continues to linger. Southwestern Colorado’s Animas-La Plata water diversion project, first approved by Congress in 1968, is still slated for […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Grand Canyon flood postponed
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The fight for Reclamation. Biologists and Colorado River raft guides alike thought it was a sure thing: For one week in the spring of 1995, floodwaters from Glen Canyon Dam would roar through the Grand Canyon as they hadn’t since the high water summer […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Dams were built on breathless prose
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The fight for Reclamation. To have a deep blue lake Where no lake was before Seems to bring man A little closer to God. A sweet breeze Across deep water The campfire’s glow Day’s end Peace – From Lake Powell: Jewel of the […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
The fight for Reclamation
When John McPhee, in Encounters with the Archdruid, rides down the Colorado River with Floyd Dominy, the bullheaded Commissioner of Reclamation during the 1950s and 1960s, and David Brower, Dominy plunges into the Lava Falls rapid with a cigar clenched between his teeth. Doused by the maelstrom, the cigar, minutes later, glows again: McPhee’s sly […]
Posted inMarch 6, 1995: The fires next time
Don’t forget an “old curmudegon’s’ opinion
Dear HCN, Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes, 1933-1946, made a powerful public statement in 1935 supporting wilderness at a conference of state park authorities. Given the public mood, I believe it is time to hear from the old curmudgeon once again: “I am not in favor of building any more roads in the national parks […]