Dear HCN, While the aluminum vs. dams article (HCN, 2/7/94) was good it was short of basic information: what the aluminum industry pays for power. People can understand grazing fees – try to get a horse fed for $3 per month or pay for patent land at $5 per acre – but we should know […]
We pay for cheap aluminum
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Getting Dombeck was a coup
Dear HCN, A short correction to the article by Tony Davis in the Feb. 21 edition, Western Roundup section: In the first article on Jim Baca, the last paragraph mentions acting BLM director Mike Dombeck. Mike is not a career BLM employee … in fact, as recently as 1990, Mike was a staff fish biologist […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Some advice for rural residents
Dear HCN, Yes, house hunting in Bozeman can be frustrating (as described in the Jan. 24 HCN, “Montana Town Puts Out the Unwelcome Mat”). But unlike others profiled in that story, I don’t exclusively blame footloose entrepreneurs, Californians or Hollywood stars for this and other growth-related problems. While not always to our liking, change is […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Condos, not cows
Dear HCN, As retirees and industries flock to the West, many fear the loss of the region’s open spaces and wildlife habitat. Officials from extractive industries such as farming, ranching and timber capitalize on this fear, warning that if environmentalists and others who are demanding an end to subsidies are successful, subdivisions will proliferate as […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Professionals, not cowboys
Dear HCN, After reading Ed Marston’s Comb Wash “A Stark Victory in Utah” editorial in the January issue of HCN, I am very disappointed. I am a long-time BLM employee but am not personally involved in Comb Wash. However, I know enough about the issue and BLM to know that your editorial is full of […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Hammering out “ecosystem management’
Lynx, grizzly bear and salmon could be the winners in a new plan to link the current patchwork of parks, national forests and recreation areas in Washington’s North Cascades. Along with the National Park Service, groups like The Wilderness Society, the National Parks and Conservation Association and the Canadian Earthcare Society will host a three-day […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
A grand intellectual critique
John Ralston Saul has developed a theory to explain what ails the world: rationality run amuck. Language, in the hands of bureaucrats or modern poets and novelists, is designed to obscure, as in environmental impact statements, or is all style and no substance. The ultimate rationalizers – Robert S. McNamara and Henry Kissinger – destroy […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
News but no paper
For people who want to keep up with environmental news but don’t want to drown in a sea of paper, Green Disk offers a wealth of information without filling up the mailbox or the local landfill. The Green Disk: Paperless Environmental Journal comes on a computer diskette in Mac or DOS format. Included in the […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Sun Day
When making plans for Earth Day this spring, don’t forget about Sun Day, April 24, a national celebration of renewable energy and energy conservation. Organizers hope to educate people about the potential of renewable energy and showcase renewable-energy programs and technologies. Over 50 national environmental, business, utility, student and government groups are sponsoring Sun Day, […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Elevating mud to art
You might need to build a new addition just to house the Adobe Journal. The 11 by 14 inch quarterly from Albuquerque, N.M., allows ample room for black and white photos of adobe innovations, from castles with stained glass and arches, to “earthships” of tires and cans that house indoor gardens. Published by the non-profit […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Noisy wildlife refuges
Arizona’s endangered bobwhite quail and New Mexico’s antelope may be running away from national wildlife refuges instead of toward them. According to a recent study by the non-profit Defenders of Wildlife, military overflights continue to disrupt at least 35 refuges. The group’s report, Unfriendly Skies, says that while bombers and fighter-planes practice overhead, startled birds […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Tree poaching on the rise
Timber prices are now so high that renegade loggers in northern Idaho have been stealing trees from national forests. Recently, 15 people were arrested for 35 timber thefts that occurred last year on the Priest Lake District of the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. Don Hacker, 42, of Priest River, Idaho, was fined $600 and ordered […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Some groups hot, some not
If membership figures are any indication, the 1990s will be a lot tougher for many environmental groups than the 1980s. Traditional heavyweights like The Wilderness Society, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and The National Wildlife Federation have experienced significant drops in membership since 1990. Membership at The Wilderness Society, for instance, dropped from […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
New Santa Fe mayor says: “This town is not for sale’
Defying predictions and the clout of big money, Santa Fe, N.M., voters elected former city councilor Debbie Jaramillo mayor March 1. She promised to rein in runaway development and return city government to the people. Pre-election polls and campaign funds had shown Jaramillo lagging well behind other candidates. Projected winner Peso Chavez raised $86,400 from […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Chevron drops leases
Chevron USA surrendered all of its oil and gas leases in the Bridger-Teton National Forest near Jackson Hole, Wyo., last month. The surprise release of both its new 1993 leases and older ones dating back to the early 1980s may spare the 60,000-acre Willow Creek roadless area from drilling. Chevron says it backed off the […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
North Dakota may get a wilderness
In a surprise move in late February, North Dakota Gov. Ed Schafer endorsed portions of a Sierra Club plan to establish the state’s first ever federal wilderness areas. Although all of North Dakota’s major newspapers and many citizen’s groups have backed the wilderness plan, Schafer, a Republican, is the state’s first politician to sign on. […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Grazing plan springs a leak
The Department of Interior’s revised grazing reform regulations are not due out until the end of March, but leaked copies are already making headlines. According to the Washington Post, the big changes from last year’s reform proposal will be a grazing fee increase scaled back from $4.28 per animal unit month to $3.96; new incentives […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
How to turn lemonade into lemons
The environmental movement seems intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. With a perverse political sense that values bad news and dismal foreboding over progress and natural evolution, environmentalists are putting a tragic, apocalyptic spin on every event. Take the firing of former Bureau of Land Management head Jim Baca. It was unfortunate. […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
Bruce Babbitt as Captain Consensus
What do the following personages have in common: Albert Schweitzer, Linus Pauling, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Bruce Babbitt? Type O blood? A secret fondness for fondue, perhaps? Nope. According to Ed Marston, the normally skeptical publisher of High Country News, they all should be recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. […]
Posted inMarch 21, 1994: On the borderline
RS 2477: A loophole for vandals
For years, Utah’s Arch Canyon was closed to motorized vehicles to protect sensitive riparian and natural values. But when off-road vehicle users began promoting the canyon as a travel route for their annual jeep safari, the Bureau of Land Management opened the canyon to vehicle use. Now, vehicles crush streamside vegetation, send fragile soils downstream […]