Dear HCN, County officials throughout the West are talking about “taking back the land” by abolishing the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service. Last year we began hearing a legal argument that New Mexico was denied statehood on an “equal footing” with the original 13 states, contrary to the U.S. Constitution. This old theory […]
Counties can’t “take back’ federal land
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Taking our time, too
Dear HCN, If the concept of “takings’ is to be a part of our way of life, then the concept should extend to population growth. Increased traffic congestion resulting from population growth could, for example, cause a person to spend an extra half-hour a day commuting to and from work; added up over a working […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Bigoted drivel
Dear HCN, We read the “Waaaaaahh” essay you published on the back page of HCN Feb. 20, and found it beyond insulting and beneath contempt. It made us sad to see you endorse such sweeping cruel generalizations and obvious vulgar innuendo. Sadder that it appeared just when polarizations and lack of trust over wolf, water […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Telling the truth is hard but necessary
Dear HCN: The February 20 High Country News article about the Idaho salmon lawsuit painted a misleading picture. The issues are not about minor legal technicalities, nor gaps between urban and rural folks. The court’s slam-dunk decision was the result of the continued failure of the Forest Service to follow the law and protect dwindling […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Tales from the West
The in-laws are a steady, insistent, increasingly frantic chorus of disapproval over her plans. But, Mary! How can you expect to go to college and take good care of a husband and a baby? Finally, We’re going to put our foot down! She knows that somehow she has got to extricate herself from these sappy […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Gambling with small towns
In three Colorado mountain towns where gambling has been allowed since 1990, four out of 10 residents would now like to move out, according to a study by the University of Colorado. Knocking on every door, researchers found that residents want to take flight because of the rapid and drastic changes in their communities. Although […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
You can’t cut them all
The Forest Service drastically overestimated the number of trees it could cut from Northwest forests, according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO found that the Forest Service exaggerated allowable sale quantities for three of the most productive forests in the region – the Deschutes, Gifford Pinchot and Mount Hood. […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Our hot legacy
OUR HOT LEGACY “Where and how will we treat and dispose of the backlog of wastes from nuclear weapons production? How clean is clean? Should we exhume large volumes of contaminated soil in order to allow for unlimited use of the land in the future? To foster a sustained and informed public debate on these […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
How to nominate an environmental innovator
Hoping to galvanize the environmental movement in the United States, one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in the world began five years ago to give money directly to the country’s best and brightest conservationists. It’s the Pew Charitable Trust’s Pew Scholars Program, which so far has doled out 50 grants of $150,000 to people from […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Wolves feel the urge
In a promising sign for the effort to restore the ecosystem of Yellowstone National Park, wolves imported in January are already trying to breed. Although the 14 wolves shipped from Canada to Yellowstone are still cooped up in one-acre pens in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, rangers have observed male wolves attempting to mount female wolves. Biologists […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Feds flex their muscles
Federal attorneys fired a warning shot March 8 at county governments in the West trying to assert control of public lands. Justice Department lawyers sued rural Nye County, Nev., where local officials have harassed federal land managers. In one instance, Nye County commissioners threatened Bureau of Land Management staff trying to enforce grazing regulations. In […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Life among the ruins
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 […]
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 […]