OREGON Environmentalists hoping to create a 37,000-acre Badlands Wilderness Area about 20 miles east of Bend, Ore., got a tremendous boost in February, when the local mountain bike group endorsed the proposal. Because bicycles are banned from wilderness areas, many mountain bikers are lukewarm, at best, about proposals to create more wilderness. But the biker-run […]
Mountain bikers go wild
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Follow-up
Is clean water bad for business? Last year, the New Mexico Environment Department told Phelps Dodge Mining Company to clean up contaminated groundwater beneath its Tyrone Mine (HCN, 5/12/03: Phelps tries to Dodge bond). The state recently upheld its decision despite the company’s appeal, leading a company spokesman to tell the press: “We think it […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Heard around the West
MONTANA How do you test a garbage can to find out if it’s tough enough to withstand the long claws and big brain of a ravenous grizzly bear? Just ask a seasoned hand at product-testing — a half-ton grizzly named Sam — to lend his expertise. Sam and seven other bears are “official product inspectors” […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
At home on the range with 10-year-old writers and dreamers
During a spring storm, a group of fourth-graders are considering how their lives will change in the future. I’ve asked them to think about anything that might be different for them tomorrow, or even 30 years down the road. A bunch of hands go up, and the first student I call on looks out the […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
I’ve tried, but I can’t eat the view
I’ve given up on one of the great American dreams — owning a home of my own. Why? Because it’s becoming impossible to find affordable housing in the West, even in the non-resort towns. It’s easy to tell that Missoula, Mont., is still a working-class town. Just check out the traffic on the tree-shaded lanes, […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Wal-Mart: Love it or loathe it
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Wal-Mart’s Manifest Destiny.” For two years in a row, Fortune Magazine, in a survey of 10,000 business experts, has named Wal-Mart “America’s Most Admired Company.” But if businesspeople love Wal-Mart, many working people loathe it: Wal-Mart now faces at least 30 class-action lawsuits from […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
In a bitter strike, grocery workers lost ground
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Wal-Mart’s Manifest Destiny.” At the same time that Inglewood was fighting off Wal-Mart’s assault, the United Food and Commercial Workers union staged the longest grocery store strike in U.S. history. The strike was triggered when traditional grocery chains decided to prepare for the Supercenter […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Defending the West Desert: Utah activist Jason Groenewold
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH — Utah’s West Desert is a tough place to love. The barren landscape, which stretches across tens of thousands of square miles along Utah’s border with Nevada, lacks the redrock spires and canyons that draw recreationists and sightseers to southern Utah. The occasional mountain range and salt flat are the only […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Wilderness up for lease
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Buying time against the energy assault.” As industry gobbles up oil and gas leases across the West, citizen-proposed wilderness areas, which encompass millions of acres of public lands, have become battlegrounds. Under a Clinton-era policy, these areas […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Buying time against the energy assault
Do oil and gas leases offer citizens a chance to save the land?
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Small-time ski operator fights for his life
A mom-and-pop ski area takes on a Texas billionaire and his plans for a mega-development
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Arizona voters say ‘yes’ to open space
Unusual alliances — and a little bit of pork — give land preservation an economic boost
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Dear Friends
The good news The High Country News board of directors came to Paonia in late May, to mull over the finances and plan for the future. The numbers for the first quarter of 2004 look good: Our expenses are below budget, and our income is above budget, thanks largely to a grant from the Hewlett […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Ballot-box democracy
A few years ago, my hometown got a taste of the rancor that often comes with growth and development in the West these days. A local businessman wanted to build a subdivision on some hay pastures outside Paonia’s city limits, in an area the town’s comprehensive plan had identified as important for its agricultural value. […]
Posted inJune 7, 2004: Wal-Mart's Manifest Destiny
Wal-Mart’s Manifest Destiny
Intent on Western expansion, the world’s largest company turns democracy upside-down —but now, communities are fighting back
Posted inWotr
Surprise: The bill for a water grab in California may be coming due
Water in the West has never made sense, thanks to states drawn with straight lines and watersheds that won’t stay put. Then there’s California, where hydrology and demography rebound off each other In opposite directions. Two-thirds of the people live in the south, while two-thirds of the surface water is in the north. This mismatch […]
Posted inWotr
When it’s ‘deer o’clock’ — watch out
When the sun dips into the horizon during Wyoming’s twilight hours, dangers are suddenly everywhere. In an instant, dark figures begin darting onto the state’s roads, and the sound of squeaking brakes can be heard from Rock Springs to Cody. We call this time of day “deer o’clock,” and we grip the steering wheel just […]
Posted inWotr
Where you live in a small town is somebody’s recollection
“I’m living on Nutting Street now,” a friend told me last week. “You know where that is?” “Of course not!” I responded. “This is a small town! Nobody remembers the names of streets!” When I lived in the city, I knew the old saw that rural people give directions using landmarks that no longer exist […]
Posted inWotr
At home on the range with 10-year-old writers and dreamers
During a spring storm, a group of fourth-graders are considering how their lives will change. I’ve asked them to think about anything that might be different for them tomorrow, or even 30 years down the road. A bunch of hands go up, and the first student I call on looks out the window and says, […]
Posted inWotr
Wilderness isn’t a fish farm
For a start, you can blame the enthusiasm of “bucket biologists” in the West. As far back as the 1800s, these avid anglers and fishery managers took it upon themselves to bring fish — and fishing — to lakes and streams in the high country and backcountry of America. A lot of people praised them […]