Wyoming geared up for war In Wyoming, “It wasn’t the year to be seen as a thoughtful problem-solver,” says Sierra Club Northern Plains representative Larry Mehlhaff. “It was the year to have a bumper-sticker campaign.” Wyoming’s new senator, Republican Craig Thomas, lambasted Democratic Gov. Mike Sullivan during the campaign by associating him with President Clinton […]
Goodbye, New West; hello lords of yesterday: Dispatches from the field
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Election ’94 postmortem
Conservationists’ pre-election nightmares became real Nov. 8. A landslide gave Republicans a majority of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, and turned already conservative state legislatures in the West further to the right. “It’s not just the reversal, it’s the size of the reversal,” says Bruce […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Farmers spin federal dollars into hay
When Utah environmentalists began complaining about new water-conservation proposals during a recent public hearing, farmer Howard Riley leaned toward the man next to him and muttered: “It depends on how you define conservation.” Riley, a director of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, represents farmers in Juab County and southern Utah County who would receive […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
BuRec to allow water thefts to continue
A crackdown against illegal use of federal water from dams in the West won’t take place anytime soon (HCN, 10/31/94). That’s because a long-awaited plan for curbing abuses is being shelved by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Under pressure from farm irrigators, the BuRec has begun work on what some observers predict will be a […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Dear friends
Good news, bad news This column is usually free of the “issues” that permeate the rest of the paper. The “Dear friends” column is HCN’s version of a small-town cafe’s liars’ table. It is here that we gossip, remark on who got married or had a child, and welcome visitors. But this fortnight’s mix of […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
How Methow Valley grew an economy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Beauty eludes the beast. METHOW VALLEY, Wash. – While developers and government officials spent two decades and millions of dollars trying to turn this valley into a destination downhill ski resort, residents quietly built and maintained a world-class cross-country skiing area. Now the proposals for […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Citizens held off big money for years
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Beauty eludes the beast. METHOW VALLEY, Wash. – Only by sticking determinedly to their vision of this valley for 20 years did environmentalists force a compromise from all-out development. When the Aspen Ski Corp. and the Forest Service wanted to develop a downhill ski resort […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Beauty eludes the beast
Washington’s Methow Valley may avoid industrial tourism
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Environmental records of ranking Republican members ofcommittees addressing natural resource issues
Note: this is a sidebar to the news story titled “Election ’94 postmortem“ Environmental records of ranking Republican members of committees addressing natural resource issues. Compiled by League of Conservation Voters, based on bill sponsorship and recorded votes in the 103rd Congress. Sen. John Chafee, Committee on Environment and Public Works – 79 percent Sen. […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Greens under attack
The press has followed the wrong story, says David Helvarg, author of The War Against the Greens: The “Wise-Use” Movement, the New Right, and Anti-Environmental Violence. Zealous anti-environmentalists like to portray themselves as victims of an elite movement that has swept across the country, Helvarg says, and the national press, led by New York Times […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
From Oregon to Wyoming
A former county commissioner in Oregon has taken over the reins of the Wyoming Outdoor Council. New executive director Tom Throop was a commissioner in Deschutes County, Ore., where he helped begin a recycling program and rewrite county land-use laws to protect farmlands and forests. Throop, 47, who spent eight years in the Oregon Legislature, […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Who are you calling redskin?
When you go to a Saints’ football game “and a little mascot dressed like the pope runs around and sprinkles holy water on all the drunks, then you should start protesting. And us Indians will be right there beside you,” says the director of the American Indian Movement, Clyde Bellecourt. He makes the comparison in […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Blow, whistleblowers, blow
Continuing to emphasize openness at the Department of Energy, Secretary Hazel O’Leary proposed reforms Oct. 17 to protect whistleblowers. Employees who raise concerns about fraud or safety, for example, would be protected against retaliation and litigation costs related to lawsuits brought against them by contractors, and the agency would form a special department for employee […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Wild in Montana
Two former high-ranking Forest Service officials known for their blunt criticism of the agency headline the Montana Wilderness Association’s 36th annual convention in Great Falls, Dec. 2-3. Tom Kovalecky, retired supervisor of the Nez Perce National Forest, and John Mumma, former regional forester for the northern region of the Forest Service, will speak about changes […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Caribou population still too small
Since the woodland caribou in Montana’s Selkirk Mountains were listed as an endangered species in 1983, the caribou population has more than doubled, from 23 animals to 50. But without intensive management by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Selkirk’s caribou are doomed, says David Tallmon, a biologist at the University of Montana. The […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Say what?
The NPS wants help ASAP in de-jargonizing its PR under NEPA. Translated, that means for the first time in 12 years the National Park Service is considering changes in procedure under the National Environmental Policy Act, the mother of all environmental protection. Passed in 1969, the act describes which environmental impacts the federal government must […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Wilderness becomes a career path
The Forest Service is about to give designated wilderness the bureaucratic attention it deserves, according to Jim Lyons, the nation’s front-line politician overseeing the agency. The Forest Service is creating a new Washington, D.C.-based job, national director of wilderness, which “will be on a par with other program managers, such as timber, range and minerals,” […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Extinction was the message
In the heart of Boise, Idaho, close to 100 “salmon” recently tried to run a faux gantlet of four “dams,” mimicking the difficulties of real-life migration for salmon and smolts swimming the Snake River to the Pacific Ocean. Costumed volunteers played the salmon and the Snake River dams: Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Fall damps fires of ’94
The arrival of autumn rain and snow brought relief to the West’s firefighters. The summer of 1994 has been the most intense fire season in memory, according to the federal fire center in Boise, Idaho. Nationwide, 3.9 million acres burned this year, nearly twice the yearly average from 1989 to 1993. It was not the […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
A small town in Oregon gets ugly
After tarred-and-feathered effigies of two environmental activists were strung up in the center of Joseph, Ore., Sept. 30, the local newspaper headlined its story: “Enviros can learn a lot from a couple of dummies.” Some residents then organized an economic boycott aimed at driving the two environmentalists out of town. Were these tactics reminiscent of […]