ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. – The Nature Conservancy has purchased a 4,200-acre ranch near the Big Horn Mountains, ending speculation that the prime real estate might find its way into the hands of developers. The sale of the Pete Widener ranch prompted 10 other nearby ranching families to donate conservation easements on an additional 10,223 acres. […]
Ranchers protect land in Wyoming
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Home, home on the subdivisions
Yellowstone National Park’s bison have come a long way since 1901, when only 44 survivors of North America’s millions grazed inside its boundaries. Stu Coleman, chief of the park’s natural resources branch, estimates the current population at 4,300 – nearly a hundred times that number – and calls the place “a bison-generating machine.” In 1988-89, […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Northwest council says salmon should float
Despite tremendous pressure to delay a decision, the Northwest Power Planning Council approved a plan Dec. 14 to save Columbia River salmon. It relies on drawing down reservoirs – rather than on barges – to speed migrating salmon to sea. “After 14 years of studying the problem, the council finally concluded that fish float,” says […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Dear friends
We break for winter Our little joke is that twice a year, to enable you to catch up with your High Country News reading, we skip an issue. That’s true. But the additional truth is that staff also needs a break every six months or so. As a result of meeting our mutual needs, there […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
For about as long as anyone can remember the good citizens of Albuquerque have been living a fantasy when it comes to water. Despite receiving only eight inches of rain a year, residents have grown up washing their cars in the street, playing golf on lush coastal grass and using some 250 gallons of water […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Rocky Mountain Naturalist
-Go out into the wilderness and meet yourself,” advised Enos Mills, called the father of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. “If any normal person under 50 cannot enjoy being in a storm in the wilds, he ought to reform at once.” Radiant Days: Writings by Enos Mills contains the work of this naturalist and activist […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
The honeymoon is over
The Honeymoon Is Over Back in about 1969, middle America married the environment … After 25 years of marriage, the relationship is growing a little thin … People who care about rivers – that’s you and me – need to court our spouses anew (and) persuade middle America that we really do care about mainstream […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Pests and pesticides
If you don’t like chemical pesticides but don’t like pests either, then Pesticides in our Communities: Choices for Change may be for you. It tells how to substitute boric-acid powder, powdered sugar, corn syrup and stale beer for dichlorvos (Vapona), chlorpyrifos (Raid Roach, Hot Shot Roach), and carbaryl (Sevin). Published by Concern Inc., a Washington, […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
War on wheels
Jeeps, dirt bikes and four-wheelers roar off designated roads in the wildlands of Utah and rip up desert wildlife, says the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management stands by and lets the damage happen, the group charges. SUWA wants President Clinton to issue an Executive Order closing all public lands to […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Crude awakening
The Exxon tanker spill was a drop in the bucket compared to what the U.S. oil industry routinely wastes. In Crude Awakening, The Oil Mess in America: Wasting Energy, Jobs and the Environment, Friends of the Earth says we lose the equivalent of 1,000 Exxon spills each year through leaks, evaporation and inefficient use. Author […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Fighters for justice
Gail Small: I am a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe. I am an environmental attorney, activist, and founder of Native Action – one of the few grass-roots environmental groups based on a reservation. The 500,000-acre Northern Cheyenne reservation is located in the beautiful ponderosa pine country of southeastern Montana, (and is) rapidly being surrounded […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
A passion for less
Did you know that the average American spends one year of his or her life watching TV commercials, that every year in this country 1.3 million acres are blacktopped, and that each day, nine square miles of rural land are turned over to development? Americans overconsume, yet remain unhappy, according to statistics in All Consuming […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
More people, more damage
Dear HCN, I have worked in the backcountry of Dinosaur National Monument for four years and have had numerous encounters with groups from the Colorado Outward Bound School. They have been using this area for a number of years and frankly, it shows. Mark Udall of COBS says they “thoroughly instruct … students to diligently […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Unnatural in Yellowstone
Dear HCN, Having just returned from a four-day camping trip to Yellowstone National Park, I was interested in Dave Tillotson’s letter (HCN, 9/5/94). Unfortunately, what I would like to tackle is a little more difficult than a vehicle ban: visitor stupidity! A huge number of park visitors blatantly ignore warnings about approaching wild animals and […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Call it “Realtorville’
Dear HCN, In driving around the West for the past five weeks we largely confirmed the picture you described in “Grappling with Growth,” Sept. 9, of pell-mell, frantic growth and the growing gap between obvious wealth and poverty. Not only are the monster “homes’ ugly and in bad taste, but they are usually located on […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Leave forests alone
Dear HCN, To suggest that logging in some way is a way towards forest health is like the medieval doctors who thought the best way to save a dying patient was to bleed them to rid them of “bad blood.” From an ecological perspective, there is no forest “health” problem. Disease, insects, and yes, even […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
We are not elitists
Dear HCN, It seems to me that we environmentalists are in danger of shooting ourselves in the foot – again! In retrospect, it’s clear that a major mistake was made in giving the appearance (sometimes maybe more than that) of not caring about workers who lost their jobs in mining, timbering or elsewhere. This gave […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Noose threatens planning supporter
Ellen Gray locks her office door when she’s at work. Since she was threatened during a public meeting in Everett, Wash., this month, her job as director of the Pilchuck Audubon Society’s SmartGrowth Campaign seems a high-risk occupation. Gray had just testified about a proposed land-use ordinance at a Snohomish County Council hearing when a […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Reprieve for the Uintas
More than 218,000 acres in the Uinta Mountains near Salt Lake City have been spared the drill. Although the Forest Service approved an oil and gas exploration permit that Chevron applied for in 1989, the company announced this summer that it would withdraw. Chevron had only one hurdle left before drilling: the signature of Salt […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Owl defenders awarded $1 million
The federal government must pay $1 million to lawyers who fought to protect the northern spotted owl during a six-year legal battle with the Bureau of Land Management. Federal District Court Judge Helen J. Frye awarded $966,317 in attorney fees to the Seattle-based Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, while the Western Environmental Law Center of […]