A “conspiracy” exists to destroy the Savage Rapids Dam in Oregon, say Oregon residents who are suing Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the Oregon governor, 15 state and federal agencies and 10 environmental groups. “If the preservationists win here, they’ll want to go after all the dams in the state,” said John DeZell, attorney and founder […]
A savage SLAPP suit
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
International park draws fire
Supporters of an international park said, “Nature knows no borders,” but protesters at a recent Seattle conference didn’t agree. Two hundred park demonstrators marched and chanted, “What do we want? No park!” while United States and Canadian park representatives talked about joining recreation areas and parks in the 11 million-acre North Cascades ecosystem. Protesters fear […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Recycling attracts Utah tribe
In a move to create jobs and build a stronger economic base, the Skull Valley Goshute Tribe in Utah has joined forces with two environmental engineering firms to form a company called EnviroSolutions. “The largest markets in the 1990s and beyond are going to be in the environment,” says tribal attorney Danny Quintana. EnviroSolutions recently […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Mushrooming business is curbed
The Forest Service has developed new rules to get a handle on the Northwest’s booming mushroom industry. During the last three years agency officials in Oregon and Washington have seen violent conflicts break out among pickers, as well as damage to forest lands (HCN, 6/28/93). Mike Rassbach, special forest products coordinator for the region, says […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Power plant disappears
Was it a hoax? Nine months after residents of Show Low, Ariz., fervently debated a proposal to build a 900-megawatt nuclear power plant in the nearby White Mountains, the proposal is dead. “It all just went away,” Show Low City Manager Patrick Sherman told the Arizona Republic. Last June, Phil Downing, then executive director of […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Suit halts coyote killings
Suit halts coyote killings When the federal government refused to shoot coyotes from the air last year, ranchers in Idaho appealed to the state Department of Agriculture for help. The agency responded by issuing seven aerial permits to gunners, who killed 193 coyotes. This year was different: Idaho’s attorney general recently shut down the state’s […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Why one advocacy group steers clear of consensus efforts
The Southern Utah Wilderness Association often receives invitations from government entities or other groups to participate on various types of advisory committees. It is usually our policy to decline these offers. The rationale behind this policy goes like this: 1. Advisory committees include interests which benefit from the status quo, and therefore have little or […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Scientist says Yellowstone Park is being destroyed
The Yellowstone northern elk herd, allowed to persist at high densities by the national park’s “natural-regulation” policy, is destroying the biodiversity and ecological integrity of the northern-range ecosystem. Park publicity denies this and misleads the public by proclaiming that all is well in Yellowstone. There are only two possible interpretations of this behavior. One is […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
The labyrinthine nature of mine waste regulations
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Can a copper firm restore a blasted ecosystem? While Kennecott grapples with a real mess of contamination on the ground and in the water around Bingham Canyon, it also finds itself entangled in a long-running debate about regulating mine wastes. The mining industry has successfully […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Can a copper firm restore a blasted ecosystem?
Introductory editor’s note: Wherever we look in the developed West, we see evidence of misuse: eroding streams, stripped forests, species such as the grizzly hanging on by their claws. Many believe it is not enough to simply stop the damage. We must also put the West back together. But many in the West are in […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Rural area beats back water diversion plan
An eight-year controversy ended May 9 when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against a company seeking to pump vast amounts of groundwater from beneath Colorado’s San Luis Valley. In 1986, American Water Development Inc., filed for the rights to siphon 65 billion gallons of groundwater a year from the sprawling San Luis Valley. Investors in […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Babbitt attacks mining’s gold heists
On the day he was not nominated to the Supreme Court, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt stepped up his campaign for reform of public-land laws in the West. Brandishing an oversized symbolic check, Babbitt bashed the “outdated” 1872 Mining Law that forced him to hand over more than $10 billion in gold to a Canada-based company […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Utah’s wildlife division is gutshot
The phone to Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources can sometimes ring three dozen times before it’s picked up. Some of the offices are now empty, and the biologists who worked in them are gone. “We’re all walking around here paranoid, wondering who’s next,” mutters a biologist well into his second decade on the job. “Everybody’s […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Irrigation pumps kill salmon
More than half the screens protecting Columbia River salmon from being sucked into irrigation pumps in Washington and Oregon are missing or don’t work, according to a recent survey conducted by the two states. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently inspected 80 screens at irrigation and hydroelectric facilities, and discovered half were either […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Dams spill water, salmon in Northwest
Faced with the lowest return of Snake River spring-summer chinook salmon in history, the National Marine Fisheries Service ordered water and salmon spilled over eight Columbia and Snake river dams May 10. The emergency measure, which was implemented immediately and will continue through June 20, drew praise from salmon advocates and criticism from industry groups […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Dear friends
Good news Congratulations to former HCN intern Zaz Hollander, who was hired recently by the Daily Astorian. Zaz will cover environmental issues on the Oregon coast. Congratulations as well to HCN’s Great Basin editor, Jon Christensen. His lead story in the Aug. 9, 1993, issue of HCN on the Diamond Springs Ranch in Nevada headlined, […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
A one-man Sagebrush Rebellion
A Nevada rancher refuses to pay more than $25,000 in fines to the BLM.
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
Searching for the sacred
Dear HCN, My reaction to Rob White’s “Sacred Places’ (HCN, 3/7/94) was a bit different from Hannah Hinchman’s (HCN, 4/18/94). I felt White’s essay to be one of the most insightful I’ve ever read in HCN. Judging by Hinchman’s many fine points, I would guess that if she read “Sacred Places’ without prejudice she might […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
How do we justify the slaughter?
Dear HCN, Michael Milstein’s article on coyote control really hit home with me (HCN, 4/18/94). During March of 1992 and 1993, aerial gunners, hired by the Prescott National Forest in Arizona, flew past my home and took down the coyote population in the surrounding hills by some 200 animals each year. The nightly caroling abruptly […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
Don’t forget Friends of the Earth
Dear HCN, As the former Colorado Plateau regional representative over a 10-year period (1974-1984) of Friends of the Earth, I applaud the efforts of the Grand Canyon Trust to involve local residents in resolving the region’s environmental issues (HCN, 4/4/94). Not every regional controversy, of course, such as the once-proposed massive coal strip mine to […]