The consensus approach to public-land grazing is like ecosystem management: a largely undefined process. To ground matters, Oregon State University has produced a 29-minute video titled, “The Miracle at Bridge Creek.” It examines how the Oregon Watershed Improvement Coalition brought together the various players on public-land grazing to improve several Oregon watersheds. The video is […]
Consensus on tape
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
From driveways to watersheds
Suburbs and ranchettes sprouting across the Western landscape often add pollution to already burdened watersheds. Residential pollution comes from oil, pesticides, and fertilizers washed off driveways and yards. The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension in Reno has launched an effort to reduce nonpoint pollution of the Truckee River by educating residents about sources of pollution […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
A word for the wild
The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act protects rivers and streams – no matter how small – from development and pollution. In Colorado, the Cache la Poudre remains the only river protected under the act. The non-profit Colorado Environmental Coalition would like more free-flowing rivers designated, but needs help to identify the most remarkable in Colorado. […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Charisma counts
Although Americans want a balanced and healthy ecosystem and favor the right of all species to exist, turtles and otters are valued above rodents and insects. Donald Coursey, public policy specialist at the University of Chicago, says his national survey “showed a difference between the public’s walk and their talk.” Conducted last fall, the survey […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Northwest forest watchers
Who says writing letters doesn’t work? Last fall Okanogan National Forest in Washington received over 700 letters protesting a draft environmental impact statement for the Granite Mountain Roadless Area. As a result, forest officials dropped plans to build at least 30 miles of new roads and log 15 million board-feet of timber. Leaders of Methow […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
A leaking public lands fund
The Clinton administration recently proposed spending $254 million of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The amount – less than anything proposed by the Bush administration – shocked some environmentalists. They hoped Clinton would tap more of the $900 million that flows each year into the fund, primarily from offshore oil drilling royalties. Environmentalists calculate […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Wildlife advocates stand firm
Despite pressure from Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus not to testify against the proposed Owyhee Canyon bombing range, both the Idaho Fish and Game Department and its appointed commission came out against it (HCN, 1/24/94). At a recent public hearing, department representatives opposed the northern portion of the bombing range, saying it seriously threatens the protection […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Recovery plan bearly there
Seventeen environmental groups said March 16 they will sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because its Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan will fail. The announcement follows a similar notice filed by three other groups in late January (HCN, 2/21/94). All say the federal plan needs to include more specific standards for the protection of core […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
South Pass reconsidered
A Wyoming environmental group has been successful in getting the Bureau of Land Management to reconsider the route of a natural gas pipeline over historic South Pass. Following a tour of the area last year, the Wyoming Outdoor Council convinced former BLM chief Jim Baca to reconsider the route. Council founder Tom Bell and other […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Sea lions slated for killing
Northwest lawmakers are urging legislation that would permit state wildlife officials to kill sea lions that feast upon a decreasing stock of steelhead at Seattle’s Ballard locks. Under the bills, which would amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act, states could petition the federal government to kill non-threatened sea mammals if they continue feeding on vulnerable […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Wallop bows out
Sen. Malcolm Wallop, Wyoming’s senior Republican senator, has decided to bow out of politics after serving for 18 years in the U.S. Senate. A major player in federal water and energy policy, Wallop had considered a run for Wyoming governor, but decided instead that his “political Energizer bunny” had run out. He will return to […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Bats need a home
A Nevada legislative mandate to seal some 3,000 abandoned mines in Nevada threatens bats that roost in the shafts. Biologists who study bats say that as cave exploration has grown in popularity, “cavers’ have scared bats out of their natural habitat. Many now take refuge in abandoned mines. At a recent workshop with Nevada officials […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Hopis attack false kachinas
In recent years, tourists have bought tens of thousands of kachinas, many of which are mass produced by Navajos. “We can’t keep up with the demand,” says Steve Roberts, manager of a factory in Thoreau, N.M., where the carved, wooden figurines representing ancestral Hopi spirits are turned out. But, the Navajos may not be able […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Wolves get green light
Wolves will roam wild again in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho as early as fall. Although 60,000 people opposed wolf reintroduction, 100,000 people told the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service they supported its draft environmental impact statement for wolf recovery. Ed Bangs, project leader for the agency in Missoula, Mont., said many people commented […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Of cows and acres
Dear HCN, I would like to make a technical point. Increasingly, people are quoting the quasi-statistic that “anywhere one has to talk acres per cow, rather than cows per acre, is no place to be grazing livestock.” Even the world’s most intensively managed irrigated pastures do not often support a stocking rate in excess of […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Explosives “rearrange’ a class 6 river rapid
Someone finally got the best of Quartzite Falls, one of the toughest rapids in North America. They blew it up. Most boaters had to portage around the dangerous class-six rapid in Arizona’s Salt River Canyon Wilderness, and two were killed last year trying to run it. But a powerful blast sometime this winter smoothed it […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
A forester thrives in the belly of the beast
Wildfire is burning in the Wet Mountain Valley near Colorado Springs, Colo. I smell the smoke before I see it. I might be glad for a stirring burn: we’re a century or so overdue. But three generations of us are here for a family reunion. Just a few steps west of our cabin, the San […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Seattle resident turns open sewers back into streams
After John Beal returned to Seattle from the Vietnam War, he and his family often picnicked on a wooded hillside where a large pond fed a meandering stream. Twelve years ago, developers bought the property and sold it to a sand-and-gravel pit operator. “I watched over a period of five years as it was absolutely […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Babbitt backs plans to kill predators
In a series of deft administrative maneuvers, the Bureau of Land Management side-stepped protests by environmental groups that had restricted federal predator-control activities on millions of acres of public land in the West. With approval from Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the BLM is now issuing predator control plans with a provision that puts them immediately […]
Posted inApril 18, 1994: The salmon win one
Coal firm may pull its straw out of aquifer
MOENKOPI, Ariz. – Hubert Lewis recalls hot summer days when he and other children of this Hopi village would get relief from the cool water in Moenkopi Wash. Moenkopi – which in Hopi means “a place where water flows’ – sits right above one of the few waterways that traverse the arid reservation in northeastern […]