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 […]
Call it “Realtorville’
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 […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Mount Usher-in-More
While the National Park Service may be talking about minimizing vehicle gridlock at Grand Canyon and Yosemite, Mount Rushmore in South Dakota is planning a $16 million parking lot to handle the memorial’s annual 3 million visitors. Superintendent Dan Wenk proposes charging drivers $4 to $5 to park to help fund the parking lot. Mount […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Stupid shooting
The large cactus on Arizona’s Tonto National Forest near Phoenix wasn’t menacing anyone, yet it now stands riddled with holes, the shooting target of vandals. The three arms of the approximately 250-year-old saguaro were shot until they fell to the ground. The Maricopa County attorney’s office will arraign five suspects, all under age 20, who […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Drilling in Wyoming
After a two-year moratorium, drill rigs may soon rumble into action in the Thunder Basin National Grassland. The Forest Service has rejected an appeal by the Wyoming chapter of the Sierra Club and Friends of the Bow to reduce oil and gas leasing within the nearly 2 million-acre grassland in northeastern Wyoming. The decision “just […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Desert Images
Phil Lauro of Dillon, Colorado, is not a fan of photographers who shoot mediocre images and then expound on how wonderful, creative, important and awe-inspiring they are. Rather, he says, “I just shoot whatever looks neat to me.” For “His bite is worse than his bark,” pictured above center, Lauro shot just one frame before […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
He felt the earth move when scientists nuked western Colorado
Twenty-five years ago Americans walked on the moon for the first time, and a federal agency set off an atomic bomb 8,426 feet underground in rural western Colorado. I was there at 3 p.m. on Sept. 10, 1969, a stowaway on the surface, you might say, when our government detonated the 43-kiloton bomb. It released […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Judge hints that Clinton’s forest plan is dead
SEATTLE, Wash. – A federal judge in Seattle is considering sending President Clinton’s Northwest forest plan back to the government for more protection for owls and salmon. Jittery forest advocates admit that such a ruling could be a mixed blessing. It could put virtually all remaining old-growth forests off-limits to logging; it could also fuel […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Another water project is drowned
After almost 20 years of controversy, Homestake II has joined the growing ranks of defeated Colorado water projects. On Nov. 17, the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld Eagle County’s decision to reject construction permits. The ruling, which recognized Colorado counties’ broad discretion in land-use matters, could be appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. But regardless […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Foul hunting tactic under attack in the West
To many Westerners, luring an unsuspecting black bear with rotting meat and then shooting it is cruel and unsporting, not to mention messy. “It’s such an exceptional practice,” says Aaron Medlock, a former Fund for Animals attorney who now works for the Humane Society of the United States. “It’s so different from regular hunting.” Lawsuits […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
The BLM: New faces and new attitudes
A new generation has ascended to top leadership posts at the Bureau of Land Management. In the last eight months, acting BLM Director Mike Dombeck has filled 17 key positions, appointing three assistant directors, eight state directors and six associate state directors. Six appointees are women, two are minorities, and two have never before worked […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Dear friends
Moving on and up Just as we are about to send yet another batch of interns – Meg, Shara and Chip – out into a cruel and uncaring world, we hear that previous graduates of HCN’s program, despite their experience here, are doing well. Cathy Ciarlo went on to earn her law degree from Northwestern […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
An urban park is surrounded by controversy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Shrink to fit. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The words from the park superintendent seemed to jump off the page at Ike Eastvold, an environmentalist who leads groups through Petroglyph National Monument. “Tour content must not include political or inflammatory information directed at either the National […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Who will run the new Park Service?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Shrink to fit. When and if the National Park Service is allowed by the Congress to reorganize itself, it will still have 366 Park Service units and close to 300 million visitors a year. But the management of those parks and visitors and how […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
A trial run at Glacier
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Shrink to fit. In the late 1980s, Republican Rep. Ron Marlenee came over from his eastern Montana district to make speeches in the Flathead Basin. In those speeches, he demanded that Gil Lusk get back inside Glacier National Park. At the time, Lusk had […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
For the white and well-to-do
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Shrink to fit. If Karl Hess has his way, the nation’s parks will become less commercial, less crowded and pricier, as visitors are asked to pay the true costs of operating the parks. But raising entrance fees could run directly into another priority: the […]