Know someone who’s worked tirelessly to protect the West’s wild places? Nominate him or her for a “Wilderness Hero” award. The program, which began last year, will honor two volunteers each month leading up to the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act this September. Award sponsors include The Campaign for America’s Wilderness, the Sierra Club, […]
Heroes for the wild
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Calendar
Head to San Francisco for the 15th Global Warming International Conference and Expo on April 20-22. Sessions will range from “Climate Change Mitigation” to “Extreme Events and Impacts Assessments” to “Agricultural and Forestry Resources Management.”http://globalwarming.net 630-910-1551 The Upper Green River Valley Coalition is sponsoring a conference in Pinedale, Wyo., on March 26-27. “Wells, Wildlife and […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
A new look at Yellowstone
“Wholly an unattractive country. There is nothing whatever in it, no object of interest to the tourist, and there is not one out of twenty who visits for purposes of observation this remote section.” So declared one congressman in the late 1800s, dismissing the valleys of Yellowstone. What a difference a century can make: Today, […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
User fees help land managers
Recently, High Country News published an article critical of the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program (HCN, 1/19/04). The article overlooks program benefits and neglects key improvements that address problems that surfaced in the early years of the program. Since 1985, recreation demand has increased approximately 65 percent on BLM lands and 80 percent at national wildlife […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Abolish user fees
Recreationists hate fees for all the right reasons (HCN, 1/19/04: A moment of truth for user fees). Fees will inexorably lead down the slippery slope to privatization and commercialization of our public lands. Fees are undemocratic, exclusionary, a regressive double tax and flat-out wrong. The Forest Service fee program takes in approximately $37 million a […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
It’s time for action on immigration
Until fairly recently, the Sierra Club responsibly endorsed U.S. population stabilization by measured, sustainable immigration levels (HCN, 2/16/04: Why I’m running). Then came political correctness, mass immigration, a rumored $5 million buy-off to keep population matters off the club’s agenda, more corrupting millions in corporate money, and the club’s board took an abrupt about-face and […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
We can’t isolate the West
I am surprised to see so much one-sidedness on population and immigration packed in one issue, and I trust that the Writers on the Range column, and related letters, do not represent the mindset of your readership (HCN, 2/16/04: Why I’m running). Why would the people of the West, many of whom have migrated here […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Consumption is the issue, not immigration
The disproportionate use of global natural resources by the citizens of the United States is the number-one environmental issue, contrary to the opinion of ex-Gov. Lamm (HCN, 2/16/04: Why I’m running). Until the citizens of this country and our government curb their gluttonous use of global resources, we have absolutely no right to deny hard-working […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
More lynx, less habitat
COLORADO A U.S. Forest Service proposal for managing the threatened Canada lynx could pull the rug out from under a $2 million effort to restore the reclusive feline to its native Colorado habitat. The lynx was considered extinct in Colorado until the state Division of Wildlife released 129 into the wild, beginning in 1999. So […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Should the Forest Service be blamed for a snowmobile wreck
MONTANA About 10 o’clock one February night in 1996, Michigan tourist Brian Musselman was snowmobiling on a groomed trail in Gallatin National Forest near West Yellowstone, when another snowmobiler “blasted over a 17-foot jump” and slammed into him, according to the Great Falls Tribune. The wreck left Musselman with severe brain injuries, and it raised […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Gas well slated for state park
COLORADO/NEW MEXICO That loud sucking noise you hear from the San Juan Basin comes from 20,000 gas wells. Now, industry is targeting a state park for one more well pad. Navajo State Park, home to Navajo Lake — “Colorado’s answer to Lake Powell” — is owned by the Bureau of Reclamation, which built Navajo Dam […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Defense company turns from rockets to real estate
CALIFORNIA Aerospace and defense company GenCorp has big plans for a former rocket-testing site east of Sacramento: Turn part of it into a subdivision. The company wants to build offices, stores, and 3,800 houses and apartments in the 1,400-acre Easton development. The new development will cover more than a tenth of a 13,000-acre site where […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Follow-up
Interior Department employees, check your in-boxes for a new message: In February, the nonprofit Campaign to Protect America’s Lands sent e-mails to almost 60,000 of the department’s 70,000 employees, asking them to call a confidential hotline — 1-866-LANDTIP — and report proposed anti-environmental regulations (HCN, 1/19/04: Coming Soon to a Wilderness Near You). Next November, […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Heard Around the West
IDAHO Wilderness areas were not created equal. In order to pacify locals and win votes in Congress, most include more than a few reminders of both the old and developed West. The Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho, for example, grandfathered in outfitters’ cabins and backcountry plane access. Now, the Forest […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
The charm of a dying place
I grew up in South Dakota, but spent my summers in Portland, Ore., with my mom. As an adolescent, I enjoyed how my city experience pushed me ahead of the curve when I got back home for school. I had my classmates beat by at least a year on the overalls-with-one-strap thing. It wasn’t all […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
President Bush should consider a “land grab” of his own
I flew into the sprawling city of Phoenix recently not expecting a nature experience or a political revelation. My colleague and I rented a car and, after an appointment in the city, fought through an hour of bumper-to-bumper afternoon traffic on our way north to Flagstaff. What a relief it was to finally see the […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
The great Central Arizona Project funding switcheroo
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The New Water Czars.“ Spend enough time in Phoenix, and it’s easy to forget the city sits in a sweltering desert valley that receives less than eight inches of rain a year. Cool misters spray shoppers on the sidewalks of Scottsdale, the ritzy enclave […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Tribe defeated a dam and won back its water
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The New Water Czars.“ Unlike the Pima Indians of the Gila River Indian Community, the Yavapai were not traditionally farmers. Instead, they migrated up and down the Verde River, hunting, fishing and gathering. But in 1903, the government settled them on Fort McDowell, a […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Persistence frees the Mokelumne: River advocate Pete Bell
California’s Mokelumne River flows from a high mountain lake in the Sierra Nevada, plunging down in a series of cascading waterfalls through a steep forest canyon in the foothills. Dams and diversions have reduced the once free-flowing river to a relative trickle. But that is changing, thanks in large part to the efforts of a […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
The de-icer that tames Western roads
Dumping magnesium chloride on winter roads keeps the traffic moving — but how safe is the stuff?