New Mexico-based Quivera Coalition has scheduled its 2004 workshops. The workshops will be held throughout the state and include topics such as “Upland and Riparian Management for a New Rancher” and “Water from Roads Less Traveled: How to design and maintain low maintenance ranch roads.” 505-820-2544 projects@quiveracoalition.org. The Pikes Peak Library District’s Special Collections is […]
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Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Songs in the key of life
Earthjustice is best-known for the free legal services it provides for environmental causes. But its lawyers know how to pick songs as well as witnesses, as the organization’s recently released CD shows. Titled Where We Live, proceeds from the album benefit a campaign for “the universal right to clean air and clean water” that includes […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Caveats on easements
The article by Jon Christensen about conservation easements was very interesting, but failed to mention a few important points about easements (HCN, 3/29/04: Who will take over the ranch?). One, conservation easements are made in perpetuity. Forever is a long time. If you need a heart transplant in 10 years, or college tuition for the […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Conservation easements don’t make the grade
Your recent article, “Who Will Take Over The Ranch,” turned out to be a big disappointment (HCN, 3/29/04: Who will take over the ranch?). The term “conservation easement” borders on being an oxymoron. In the entire article I failed to find anything that actually indicated such an easement had anything to do with conservation. Livestock […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Environment is a political issue
Why is it that the environment is almost a taboo subject in American political campaigns? Voters need to know the candidate’s stand on environmental issues! You can bet we will learn a candidate’s stand on same-sex marriage, but not their stand or views on the amount of toxic pollution power plants emit into our air. […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Don’t apologize for Bush
I strongly disagree with Jon Margolis’ apology for George Bush (HCN, 3/29/04: Bush is a man of his word: He’s audacious, but should that be surprising?). There used to be qualities such as decency, broad-mindedness and vision in our leaders. Having won the presidency with less votes than his opponent, only because of the quirky […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Indian water giveaway
Daniel Kraker’s assertion in “The New Water Czars” that Indian tribes lease their water for more than $1,000 an acre-foot is inaccurate (HCN, 3/15/04: The New Water Czars). Yes, Del Webb Corporation leased 10,000 acre-feet of water from the Ak-Chin for $12 million — but it was a one-time, up-front payment for 100 years’ worth […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Greenhouse gases go underground
WYOMING Carbon dioxide, produced by burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal, is the major culprit in climate change, trapping heat and warming the planet. Now the federal government wants to remove it from the atmosphere by burying it all over the West, starting at the Teapot Dome oil field in Wyoming. The Department […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Drought forces Las Vegas to reach deeper for water
NEVADA Remember shoving your straw deeper into a pop bottle to slurp out those elusive last drops? Faced with the fifth year of drought, the Southern Nevada Water Authority plans to do something similar in Lake Mead, which supplies drinking water to Las Vegas and surrounding areas. Water officials are hurrying to extend an intake […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Water holes awash in controversy
ARIZONA Environmentalists and state game managers are locked in a battle over the man-made water holes that some biologists say are keeping bighorn sheep and other desert species alive in the drought. As the Sonoran Desert National Monument south of Phoenix, the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the Bureau of Land Management want to […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Follow-up
The Duwamish Indians have had their land confiscated by the United States government and then by the city of Seattle (which is named after a Duwamish chief), and their status as a federally-recognized tribe rescinded by the Bush administration, but the tribe is determined to keep fighting (HCN, 6/10/02: Duwamish? Duwamish who?). The 560-member tribe […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Jetboats stir up the Frank
IDAHO A new Forest Service management plan for the 2.4 million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness could increase jetboat traffic, and would allow airplanes continued access to four controversial landing strips. Jetboats and airstrips normally aren’t allowed in wilderness areas, but the 1980 act that established “the Frank” allowed those uses to continue there. […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Heard around the West
COLORADO Under the headline “Say what?” Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reporter Michael Bender let a legislator’s faux pas wave in the breeze. State Sen. Mark Hillman got so fired up during a debate about a renewable energy bill that would almost certainly put windmills on his turf — the state’s eastern plains — that he […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Look for the best — and keep it
This country has been built on the idea of running away, of escaping whatever makes us dissatisfied, uncomfortable or ill-at-ease. It’s a vision of entitlement that began with the founding of the Plymouth Colony four hundred years ago and caused us to spread ourselves resolutely across a continent. But more than a century after the […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
The West’s mythmakers are now its newcomers
If you heard about the man who kicked off his campaign for governor by swinging a medieval battle sword on horseback in the middle of downtown Billings, you probably thought, “Only in Montana.” Glenn Schaffer posed at the offices of the local paper in February on a stallion named Big Dog Thunder Horse, and said […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Green investor Hal Brill: Bringing the Money Home
PAONIA, COLORADO — In a house stuffed with green-building books, astrologic calendars and a world-spanning array of wooden drums, a basement office is one of the few signs that Hal Brill’s life has headed squarely into the world of high finance and asset management. “I’m definitely one of the more unlikely candidates to be an […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Fish farms take to the high seas
Program moves forward with little science or oversight
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Senate rejects Energy Bill – again
But the energy industry is amply funding its champions’ re-election
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Dear Friends
Visitors A rite of winter here is climbing out of bed to tune in to the morning avalanche report, which is usually delivered with aplomb by Knox Williams, the head of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. We were pleasantly surprised when Williams and Vince Matthews, the director of the Colorado Geological Survey, showed up on […]
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
The other bottom line
One of the Bush administration’s trademarks is its absolute determination to run government like a business. Economic efficiency is job number one, and government is being ruthlessly pared down — and shopped out — in the pursuit of that goal. It’s increasingly obvious that the strategy has gotten us into deep trouble in Iraq, where […]