The big hydroelectric dams stand as symbols of the crossroads now confronting the Pacific Northwest’s salmon and steelhead. A century ago these wild fish numbered some 16 million. Now their annual count is dropping below 1 million. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.7/download-entire-issue
And now — the Last Salmon Ceremony?
How the basin’s salmon-killing system works
The Columbia Basin’s eight mainstem dams account for nearly all of the Northwest’s annual salmon slaughter, and could be modified. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.7/download-entire-issue
Why subsidize the recovery of the wolf?
Defenders of Wildlife should work to limit, not enhance, the power of the livestock interests, and push for more equitable solutions such as a mandatory insurance policy for ranchers to compensate them for depredation. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.6/download-entire-issue
Forest Service spends wilderness money on logging
Government Accounting Office (GAO) findings that the Forest Service spent nearly 40 percent of money allocated for wilderness in other areas — including recreation and timber — have led environmentalists and a key congressman to call for sweeping changes in the agency’s structure. Over the last four years Congress has increased appropriations for wilderness by […]
Overgrazing: Feds move to end it
The Forest Service claims parts of the Big Cimarron grazing allotment on the Uncompahgre National Forest are chronically overgrazed, and says the bulk of the area should be managed for recreation and the protection of its rivers and lakes. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.6/download-entire-issue
Geological controversy haunts Nevada waste site
Yucca Mountain may one day be home to the nation’s most deadly garbage — highly radioactive spent reactor fuel rods and other detritus of the nation’s 40-year experiment with nuclear power. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.5/download-entire-issue
An inside view of the Rocky Flats plant
When I went for the interview at Rocky Flats, after the first screening by the temporary agency, it was a bleak, gray, snowy day … Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.5/download-entire-issue
Hanford’s pollution is spreading
In 45 years of bomb production at Hanford, nuclear wastes have escaped into the environment from plant stacks, leaking tanks, ditches and deep injection wells. Contaminated groundwater is now reaching the Columbia River on the reservation’s northern and eastern perimeters. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.5/download-entire-issue
Preservation or development for Idaho’s Oregon Trail?
As most of the Oregon Trail is lost to development, preservationists and developers are wrangling over a segment of the trail in Idaho that still contains visible wagon ruts. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.4/download-entire-issue
Missouri: a river basin at war
A four-year drought has humbled the Missouri River and plunged its 10 basin states into a sour quarrel with one another and the Army Corps of Engineers, the river’s federal boss. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.4/download-entire-issue
Dakota dust: denial, delusion, dishonesty
This essay takes as its starting point the blowing dust of March 1988, a virtual dust bowl over the eastern half of the Dakotas. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.4/download-entire-issue
The perils of illegal action
The more one becomes involved in conscious law-breaking, whether nonviolent civil disobedience or monkeywrenching, the more one needs to be scrupulously deliberate about doing so. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.3/download-entire-issue
Oregon’s Enola Hill: ‘diseased forest’ or sacred site?
The Forest Service wants to log the steep, forested rise near Mount Hood. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.3/download-entire-issue
Colorado enters a new water era
The death of Denver’s Two Forks dam project has turned the state’s archetypal Western water establishment on its head. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.3/download-entire-issue
On grizzlies, babies and a shrinking land
I got married last fall and was immediately inundated with questions concerning when my husband and I were planning on having kids. Someone even sent me a card wishing me lots and lots of little ones. The sentiment behind that wish is really what brought ISO folks and me together in mid-January to hear a […]
Montana’s bison extermination policy to continue
A national animal-rights group failed to convince a federal judge that the state of Montana should stop killing free-roaming Yellowstone National Park bison. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.2/download-entire-issue
The rural West: a playground for the rich?
A posh development near Santa Fe riles locals. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.2/download-entire-issue
Idaho savors its waters as region seeks more hydropower
The Pacific Northwest’s dawning power shortage is adding new impetus to build more hydroelectric dams in Idaho, while the state bills itself as ‘the whitewater capital of the world.’ Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.2/download-entire-issue
Coyote slaughter: A federal killing machine rolls on
In the absence of any comprehensive national strategy to handle predatory animals, the Agriculture Department’s Animal Damage Control branch has emerged as the one program to determine the fate of American predators. It does this primarily by killing them. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/23.1/download-entire-issue
1990 Index
See a list of all High Country News articles published in 1991, categorized by subject. Click link to view PDF. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline 1990 Index.
