A basalt outcrop on Washington’s Columbia River has become the focus of an intense land-rights battle between a developer and a group of Native Americans. The outcrop, called Lyle Point, sits at the upper end of the Columbia River Gorge, which has become a magnet for windsurfers. When developer Henry Spencer came to the gorge […]
Fishing clashes with windsurfing
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
How I tried to patch together a disintegrating world
Royce Green (not his real name) and his wife were eating dinner by the kitchen window during a storm when the wind blew their new roof into the air, opening the tin trailer like a can opener. Royce’s wife thought the whole place was going to go, just like Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
How love of gold moves mountains
Through the centuries of our mythology, gold has gathered such a mystical sheen that we forget it is just another commodity. This is a critical oversight, especially for those people fighting gold mines in the West. We oppose gold mines and proposals for mines through the usual government channels, meager as these might be with […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Mega coal mine proposed again in Utah
A single dirt road winds through the white sand and expansive piûon-juniper forests of Utah’s Kaiparowits Plateau. Encircled by Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, the desert mesa hides both a seldom-visited wilderness and the state’s last large deposit of high-grade coal. Where dusty adventurers now dodge potholes, in […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Wyoming boom could gas wildlife herds
ROCK SPRINGS , Wyo. – A boom in natural gas drilling in southwestern Wyoming is happening so fast that government scientists don’t have enough time to study, let alone mitigate, impacts to wildlife, say state wildlife officials, sportsmen and environmentalists. More than 3,000 gas wells are currently operating in the five counties of southwestern Wyoming, […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Fires illuminate the West’s ‘ecological darkness’
As smoke continues to rise from fires in the West, investigators search the ashes of Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, Colo., to determine why 14 firefighters died. Like the deadly Mann Gulch Fire of 1949, chronicled in Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire, the crew was caught in a “blowup,” a nightmare situation where […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Jim Thrash: A solid man
Jim Thrash, 44, who died July 6 in the Glenwood Springs, Colo., fire, was a McCall, Idaho, conservationist. That is how I came to know him. Jim was an outfitter in the heart of Idaho – Salmon River country. For several years he chaired the wilderness committee of the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association. He […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Dear friends
Fires on the hillside The town of Paonia, where High Country News has its office, decided not to set off fireworks July 4th – nature was already providing a spectacular display. Lightning without rain had turned tinder-dry juniper hillsides above the town into fast-moving blazes, some spouting flames up to 80 feet tall. Although firefighters […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Utah kids benefit from state land reform
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, ‘Unranchers’ reach for West’s state lands. Inevitably, any disagreement over state-owned lands raises the spectre of schoolchildren in need. In Utah, where spending per pupil ranks lowest in the nation, that dismal statistic has spurred reform. State lands have never generated fat revenues for […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
‘Unranchers’ reach for West’s state lands
Well aware of the irony, conservationists in the West are gearing up for a land grab they can call their own. They’re reaching for what have been the most obscure public – or at least semipublic – lands of all. The definition itself is up for grabs. There are about 40 million such acres, or […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Sweet deal harms the Everglades
Dear HCN, Rabbit Babbitt’s reported comment relative to Florida’s Everglades (HCN, 5/16/94) that “when sugar companies blocked us in the Congress, we went to the state legislature in Tallahassee and last week we got a law there,” absurdly misleads anyone hearing it. The statute Babbitt brags about only assures our Everglades remain polluted by Big […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Life is change, pardner
Dear HCN, I would like to respond to Roger C. Brown’s comment in a recent issue (HCN, 5/30/94) that, “(Rural Westerners) may joke about (urban migrants’) lifestyles, but they do not threaten us. On the other hand we, in our condescending and sometimes ill-informed arrogance, have made very concerted efforts to destroy them in the […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
There’s another approach possible in Silver City, N.M.
Dear HCN, I was disappointed in a recent article about Silver City, N.M.: “A Struggle for the Last Grass’ by Tony Davis, May 2. Mr. Davis interviewed my husband and some of my friends. He asked questions which indicated he might be looking only for conflict, not for ways problems were being solved. I don’t […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Nothing yet beats leaving things alone
Dear HCN, As a not-so-recent graduate of Utah State University’s College of Natural Resources, I’ve known and respected Fred Wagner for years. His June 13 op ed on Yellowstone elk should be read by every environmentalist. However, a few points should be addressed. The Yellowstone Northern Range situation is not analogous to areas where livestock […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Land exchange helped wildlife
Dear HCN, Your recent article titled “Babbitt is Trying to Nationalize the BLM” (HCN, 5/16/94) provided many perceptive insights as to the possible future direction of that very important agency. I do encourage you to revisit the Indian School (Phoenix) Land Exchange brokered in the 1980s by then Arizona BLM State Director Dean Bibles, in […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
So much for badges
Between 1953 and 1967, workers at Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver, Colo., were either incorrectly monitored for radiation or not monitored at all. Now, the Department of Energy is telephoning hundreds of current and former employees at the closed weapons plant to tell them they were exposed to more radiation than anyone knew. […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Debt for nature swap
In an odd twist on modern economics, conservationists want to use the savings and loan debacle to protect the largest privately owned old-growth redwood grove in the world. The 3,000-acre Headwaters Forest of northern California is owned by Pacific Lumber, which was a family business until it was taken over in 1985 by junk bond […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Fear of research
After getting hammered by protests from loggers on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, the Forest Service abruptly killed an old-growth research project it had backed for the last 18 months. University of Washington scientists wanted to erect a 300-foot crane to study one of the least known areas of old-growth forests – the canopy. The Olympic Peninsula […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Tourists and tailings in Utah
When the federal government suggested hauling 3 million cubic yards of low-level radioactive sand down the main street of Blanding, Utah, the mayor and city council agreed. That came as a shock to the Department of Energy’s project manager Don Leske, who expected to be urged to build a highway bypass. “When you go to […]
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
Decision kills a dam
A recent Supreme Court decision on water quantity might help the Northwest’s beleaguered salmon. In a 7-2 ruling, the court said states can set minimum flow standards for waters downstream of hydroelectric plants. The case involved a dam that the city of Tacoma and a county utility wanted to build on the Dosewallips River near […]