That ammo-can groover — or its more modern counterpart, a pickle bucket fitted with a toilet-seat lid — is required gear for overnight boaters on the lower Deschutes River in Oregon this summer. The Bureau of Land Management has long beseeched river rats to pack out their sewage from trips along the popular 100-mile stretch […]
Groovers required for Deschutes boaters
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Follow-up
There’s cause to celebrate in New Mexico: The Salt River Project has decided to pull the plug on its plans for a coal strip-mine near the Zuni Reservation (HCN, 10/08/01: Salt Woman confronts a coal mine). Tribes and environmental groups have fought the mine for more than 10 years, and earlier this year, Gov. Bill […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Heard Around the West
IDAHO Editorials across the country spanked Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig for wielding his formidable clout just to bring what the New York Times called “wasteful pork” to Boise — in this case, eight C-130 cargo planes that the Air Force supposedly promised to Boise’s Air National Guard seven years ago. Only four planes have […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Everyone needs a place apart
Some years back, Marypat and I bought 20 acres of land in central Montana, two hours from our home in Bozeman. An unremarkable spot — a sandstone bluff, an intermittent creek, ponderosa pines, views of distant peaks. Beyond building an outhouse and a campfire ring, we have done nothing to develop the place. We go […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
If you’re not outraged, you’re not a true optimist
A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with a cheery woman I love to be around. She’s an artist, still a diehard Ralph Naderite, and a dedicated organic gardener. But one day, when I was ranting about some ongoing environmental disaster or another, she stood up in her broccoli patch, gave me a withering […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
In the rush to get out the gas, wildlife gets short shrift
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play.” One of the reasons the demand for natural gas is outsprinting the supply is that it takes too long to navigate the federal environmental rules. At least, that’s the story according to the industry and its […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
The Red Desert braces for a gas boom
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play.” Plans for extracting natural gas are piling up in southwest Wyoming. In addition to the drilling in the Upper Green River Basin, industry is targeting fully one-fourth of the federal land in the region that environmentalists […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Gas crisis puts Rockies in hot seat
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play.” Since last spring, Congress, the White House, economists, consumer groups and business leaders have been sounding the alarm about a natural gas crisis. While there’s plenty of disagreement on the cause and the solution, nearly everyone […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Former employees blow the whistle on Nevada mine
Is the state shirking its duty to enforce mining regulations?
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Trouble over the Badlands
Oglala Lakota Sioux fight for control of part of Badlands National Park
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Energy bill will likely boost drilling in the Rockies
Western senators parry over the nation’s future energy supply
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Dear Friends
Louisiana’s Big Oil slayer There may be any number of environmental activists who run thriving Cadillac dealerships, but we only know of one: Harold Schoeffler of Lafayette, La. The grizzled 63-year-old recently camped overnight on Lamborn Mesa outside Paonia with the Boy Scout troop he founded 20-some years ago. They were taking an eight-day tour […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
In Wyoming’s Upper Green River Basin, gas drillers lock horns with the locals
Posted inWotr
It’s time for ‘quiet recreationists’ to speak up
At long last, the people who make our beloved backpacking tents and climbing ropes and kayaks have taken some responsibility for helping us trample freely about the wilderness. In May, leaders of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) gave Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt an ultimatum. Leavitt had just signed deals stripping temporary wilderness protection from 2.6 […]
Posted inWotr
Searching for the true causes of the West’s fire problems
By now we’ve all heard — oh, how often have we heard –that a century of fire suppression has created a buildup of fuels that threatens an inferno across the forests of the West. Forest Service officials, once happy to pose for photos with Smokey Bear, now give grim news conferences to announce that natural […]
Posted inWotr
Extinction — by the clock
It isn’t easy being a cheerleader for a bottom-feeder, but I’m feeling up for the task. Montana’s two varieties of sturgeon — a miraculous, prehistoric fish that feeds at the bottom of lakes and rivers –have recently been given an expiration date — an official prediction of when they will go extinct. A doomsday clock […]
Posted inWotr
Watch out: We’re heating up our world
I’ve tended gardens around the West for much of my adult life, from the tomatoes and basil I nurtured through a Laramie winter in a solar greenhouse to the climbing roses I inherited in our yard in southern New Mexico’s Chihuahua Desert. Now I’m writing a book for Rocky Mountain gardeners, drawing on my education […]
Posted inWotr
Thanks, Frank and Deborah Popper, for pointing the way
They’re not laughing anymore. Back in 1987, when Frank and Deborah Popper traversed the Great Plains ballyhooing their “Buffalo Commons” prediction for the region, they were ridiculed. At some outposts, bodyguards were needed to ensure their safety. A Montana appearance was canceled because of death threats. Funny thing, though: Parts of the Great Plains are […]
Posted inWotr
Kobe Bryant bumps up against a small Western town
The week that the national media descended on Eagle, Colo., the lead story in the local newspaper was about a new swimming pool. The arrest of Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers basketball star, was noted on page 7, but not that Bryant’s 19-year-old accuser was a local woman. Eagle, located 30 miles from Vail […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Sustainable forestry for beginners
While most how-to forestry guides are tailored for Eastern landowners, former HCN intern Bryan Foster has brought the issue west in his new book, Wild Logging. Foster introduces readers to Western landowners, foresters and loggers, describing the physical work of marking timber sales, cutting trees, performing prescribed burns and removing felled timber. As he tells […]