Dear HCN, Rifts like the one in the Northwest environmental community described in Kathie Durbin’s article (HCN, 12/27/93) are often portrayed as moral questions: hardliners vs. sellouts or realists vs. idealists. In fact, these splits are perfectly predictable given the rules of the political game. Organizations such as the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society work […]
Upstarts today are establishment soon
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
No cows, no way
Dear HCN, WAKE UP High Country News! How loudly does the land have to scream before you come to your senses? The Western public lands you so graciously sacrifice to the rancher only account for 2-to-3 percent of the annual forage of livestock. Pocket change. Get all cows off public lands permanently and watch 300 […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Look also within, Utah
Dear HCN, Grateful thanks to Rep. Kelly Atkinson, D-West Jordan (Utah), for his expression of concern regarding Umetco Minerals’ plan to bury radioactive waste in Uravan, Colo., on the San Miguel River and a short 20 miles from the Utah-Colorado border (HCN, 11/29/93). While it’s true we all live downstream, I would suggest that Utah […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Work for (a) change
Would you like to build trails and fences on a nature preserve this summer? How about researching and writing on conservation issues in Idaho? The Northern Rockies Action Group recently published the third annual Making a Change: A Student Guide to Social Change Internships in the Northern Rockies, which describes internships with environmental and social […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Cow stomp and more
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance will hold a conference for anti-grazing activists in Salt Lake City on Feb. 19. “Take Back the West” is designed for people discouraged by the Interior Department’s efforts at grazing reform. It includes talks about Babbitt’s soon-to-be-released grazing regulations and the wise-use movement. Grazing activist George Wuerthner and writer-naturalist Terry […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Canyonlands backcountry plan
In an attempt to preserve the wildness and solitude of eastern Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, the National Park Service wants to restrict camping, backpacking and mountain biking in heavily used and ecologically important areas of the park. In a 66-page environmental assessment, the agency lays out five alternatives for managing backcountry use of the 337,000-acre […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Wanted: Wild poets
Poets who find their inspiration in nature may want to enter the ninth annual wilderness poetry competition sponsored by the Utah Wilderness Association. The group welcomes poems on the theme of wilderness, its preservation and spiritual nature. The winning poet receives $100, and the winning poem and five honorable mentions will be printed in the […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Join the eagles
Eagle watchers will convene in Klamath Falls, Ore., Feb. 18-20 during the largest gathering of bald eagles in the lower 48 states. They will also attend the 15th annual Klamath Basin Bald Eagle Conference, sponsored by the Klamath Basin Audubon Society and other non-profit groups and federal agencies, to look at the successes of bald […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Idaho’s unsettling sediment
A new government study shows that Idaho’s Lake Coeur d’Alene is one of the most contaminated bodies of water in the world. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 85 percent of the 50-square-mile lake bed is contaminated with 75 million metric tons of sediments containing silver, copper, lead, zinc, cadmium, mercury and arsenic. The contamination […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Agriculture in the round
For the past three years, up to 400 people have gathered in Denver for Colorado Gov. Roy Romer’s Agricultural Outlook Forum. This year, on Feb. 18, Romer wants the gathering to focus on the ecology and economics of sustainable farming. Experts such as Marty Strange, who founded Nebraska’s Center for Rural Affairs, and Ralph Grossi, […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Slip sliding away
Preventing land from washing into streams, rivers and lakes may not be the sexiest topic around, but for 25 years the International Erosion Control Association has held an annual conference in an attempt to make it so. This year’s conference, scheduled for Feb. 15-18 in Reno, Nev., tackles “Sustaining Environmental Quality: The erosion control challenge,” […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Taking back Santa Fe
Hoping to rein in the runaway development that has transformed Santa Fe, N.M., into a mecca for tourists and the affluent, a new group is registering voters for the city elections March 1. Take Back Santa Fe has trained dozens of volunteers who are going door-to-door to register people to vote. Organizer Gloria Mendoza says […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Texan fights out-of-state wastes
In Sierra Blanca, Texas, someone burned Bill Addington’s family lumber yard to the ground last September. Addington says the arson was a message to him and others: Stop protesting the importation of sewage sludge and nuclear waste. Addington heads a citizens’ group of over 70 people which has resisted waste disposal from other states for […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Timber industry mounts an offense
The timber industry this winter launched a $1.5 million campaign in the Pacific Northwest to derail President Clinton’s Option 9 forest plan and lift court injunctions on timber sales. In addition to radio and television ads, the industry created three citizen committees in Washington, Oregon and northern California that have sent mailings to 1.5 million […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Babbitt takes a fall
At Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, Jan. 21, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt tripped on a rock and fell on his face, requiring several stitches on his head at a local hospital. Barely an hour later, he was back at the monument, telling the press that he was ready to negotiate with Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Baca at the barricades
A movement is under way within the Clinton administration to remove Jim Baca as director of the Bureau of Land Management. Baca has had a difficult year, butting heads with ranchers and miners over federal land reforms and with Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus over a proposed bombing range (HCN, 1/24/94). On Jan. 27, top officials […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Some dams self-destruct
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Northwest is asked to give up 18 dams. The Oregon Natural Resource Council’s 18-dam “hit list” is already growing shorter. An Oregon irrigation district voted Jan. 5 to remove the Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue River. “This is not the decision […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Grazing: the shape of the future
Most combatants in the public-lands grazing battle are still in their bunkers, happily sending shells into opposing camps. Nevertheless, there hangs over this familiar and comfortable scene a small but dark cloud: the willingness among some former enemies to talk to each other. The possibility of negotiations is as unsettling in the West as it […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Grazing talks split both sides
Most environmentalists hate the idea that Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt would let a group of moderate ranchers and environmentalists from Colorado try to create a consensus plan on grazing reform. It’s like watering down a diluted version of a weak plan that was off to begin with, says Peter Angst, public-lands specialist with the […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Damnable dams
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Northwest is asked to give up 18 dams. The Oregon Natural Resources Council makes the case for eliminating 13 finished, one unfinished and four proposed dams. Historically, questions about dams have been limited to where dams should be built, but now the […]