California Democrat Dianne Feinstein paced the chamber of the U.S. Senate, Saturday morning, Oct. 8, just minutes before the adjournment of the 103rd Congress. The number 59 glowed on the electronic scoreboard. Feinstein and a huddle of grim-faced Democrats knew they needed one more vote to end a month-long Republican filibuster frenzy that had prevented […]
Environmentalists mostly skunked by Congress
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
‘People of the Earth’ stress ‘natural laws’
Note: this article is a sidebar to the news article After a heavy harvest and a death, Navajo forestry realigns with culture “As Native people we can’t really separate our environment from us, so it’s hard to call us environmentalists,” says Diné CARE activist Adella Begaye. “We stress cultural values, the natural laws learned from […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Faith in a martyr helps the cause
Note: this article is a sidebar to the news article After a heavy harvest and a death, Navajo forestry realigns with culture “Leroy Jackson died because he tried to protect the land,” says Diné CARE president Earl Tulley. “If he didn’t stand up against logging, he’d still be alive.” Jackson, a Diné CARE co-founder, was […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
After a heavy harvest and a death, Navajo forestry realigns with culture
NAVAJO, N.M. – On the austere, high-desert plateau of the Navajo Nation, the Chuska Mountains rise unexpectedly, an oasis of alpine forests and crystal-clear lakes. For centuries the Chuskas have been the source of building materials, game animals and grazing land, a place to gather medicinal herbs and spiritual strength. But in the past four […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Maulings: More grizzlies feeling more stress
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – When hunting guide Nate Vance left his tent in the early morning darkness he quickly realized that the figure moving heavy logs off the food cooler was not the cook. “I heard a “woof” and I smelled that awful breath,” Vance says. “I knew I had stepped into a bad situation. […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Utah vandalism includes spiked trees
In late September a nervous-sounding caller warned a secretary in the Fish Lake National Forest office in Richfield, Utah, that the Deep Creek timber sale had been spiked. The 66-acre sale northwest of Capitol Reef National Park hadn’t generated much controversy, but loggers who inspected after the phone call said they found many metal spikes. […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Ranchers blamed for transfer of BLM veteran
A 31-year Bureau of Land Management veteran says the agency is transferring him from Wyoming to Utah because of his by-the-book stand on grazing. Darrel Short, area manager for Wyoming’s Kemmerer Resource Area, says the agency kowtowed to rancher pressure in issuing the transfer, and he is challenging the move under the federal law protecting […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Dear friends
Dead deer come to town Hunting season has begun with a bang, so to speak, in the mountains that surround Paonia. Staffers have had to compete for parking on Grand Avenue with vehicles festooned by dead deer, and out one office window which faces a very busy meat packing plant, we can see a procession […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Who’s who in water spreading
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Water for the taking. WaterWatch, based in Portland, is one of the nation’s first statewide groups focused solely on water quantity, rather than water quality. It has filed legal challenges to Oregon’s system of issuing water-use permits, which, says founder Tom Simmons, has turned […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
For the full scolding
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Water for the taking. The Bureau of Reclamation has a new role in the West, and it’s high time the agency focused on management, not development, concludes an Interior Department audit on the unauthorized diversion of water. The July 1994 audit, Irrigation of Ineligible […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Water for the taking
Some irrigators get loose with the law
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
The battle isn’t over
Dear HCN: Ed Marston may have been right in his Aug. 22 opinion article that environmentalists have won and there has been an amazing conversion at the Forest Service and BLM and the beasts of contention can now lie down together on Mr. Babbitt’s holy middle ground. But where is the evidence? Has he listened […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Extremism is on the rise in Whatcom County, Washington
Dear HCN, I am writing to clarify some statements in the article from your 9/15/94 edition re “Rural residents defy Washington law.” I am a Whatcom County resident, a former candidate for public office (County Council, 1993), and the current co-president of the Washington Environmental Council. As a co-founder of Whatcom Watch, a citizens’ networking […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Ranchers, not ranchettes
Dear HCN: One topic not dealt with in your recent special issue on development in the West: the transformation of the private-land component of public-lands ranches to ranchettes. The proliferation of 10- to 40-acre ranchettes with their accompanying traffic, paving, fences, sewer systems, dogs and horses decimates winter range, degrades groundwater quality, accelerates runoff and […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Tell the whole population story
Dear HCN: Thanks for the excellent issue on growth in the West (HCN, 9/5/94). In his essay, Dick Lamm fails to divulge the underlying cause of the population growth and immigration: poverty. It seems that Lamm advocates closing the borders to immigration. Although our borders are lined with 10-foot fences and armed guards and bodies […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Nevada Water Forum
University of Nevada professor Jean Ford has published the findings of a series of Nevada Water Forums held around the state last spring. The forums asked: “How should we manage and allocate water to help create the Nevada we want over the next 20 years?” Participants considered maintaining the current system of water allocation under […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Home on the electric range
-How would you like it if you lost your jobs, your home and communities just because of an animal no one’s even heard of? Is that what America’s really about?” Tammy Jo asked every five minutes, every day, until she was unplugged. She is a member of the life-sized robotic ranching family that enthralled visitors […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Pay to play
The Southwest Idaho Mountain Biking Association believes mountain bikers should pay to use trails on public lands. The group wants Idaho to enact a $10 annual fee to maintain trails, create new ones and develop trail-etiquette education. Cyclists, who would register any bike that they ride off-road, could influence how funds are spent through advisory […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Celebrate the West
Growth, politics and the future of the region will come under scrutiny at a “Celebrate the West” conference in Jackson, Wyo., Nov. 5-7. The conference honors Western historian and author Alvin M. Josephy Jr., who has helped Indians establish their voice in the telling of Western history. The gathering at the National Wildlife Art Museum […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Witness
-Each species is a masterpiece,” says biologist and writer E.O. Wilson in his introduction to Witness: Endangered Species of North America, a large-format book of 200 stunning black-and-white and color portraits. Photographers Susan Middleton and David Littschwager collaborated with the California Academy of Sciences and Chronicle Books to produce this collection, to try to focus […]