What’s in a name? Controversy, as I learned about 25 years ago when I began editing a newspaper in Breckenridge, Colo. I called one local attraction what I’d always called it — “Dillon Reservoir.” The nearby Dillon Chamber of Commerce told me that it was scenic “Lake Dillon.” I argued that it was not a […]
One way to get rid of Lake Powell
Posted inWotr
The strange allure of tipsy trips in Montana
Drinking and driving in Montana has begun to be something of a cliché. Locals tell out-of-state newspapers that we measure distances in beers. A Los Angeles Times story a few months ago included a quote from Bill Muhs of Bozeman: “Bozeman to Billings is a six-pack drive…. Crossing the state would be a whole case.” […]
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The Bush administration is moving to mine our heritage
By any standard political measure, July was not the best of times for the protection of the last remaining wild places in this country. On July 16 came a ruling by a Wyoming court challenging the legality of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule — a policy to protect 58.5 million acres of untrammeled national forests […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Gas, the clean energy?
If High Country News were in the habit of dispatching reporters to the Los Angeles area, we could begin our cover story there, in the metro hive of 17 million people. We could open with the average guy or gal, cranking on the air conditioner against the summer heat. Then we could follow the aftershocks […]
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When does a deer become an elk? And other questions…
At what point did moose become marvels, bears become monsters and a 300-yard walk get to be strenuous? When did the human eye need a digital camera to properly experience the unimaginable proportions of the West? While working for the Park Service at Natural Bridges National Monument in southern Utah, and now for a concessionaire […]
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The EPA needs an urban pit bull
You walk past a wrecking yard and see on the other side of a high, chain link fence, not a pit bull with a mouth full of teeth but a goldfish in a tank. That”s the image called up by Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt’s nomination as head of the Environmental Protection Administration. It”s a nomination […]
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We keep dousing wildfires with money
Judged solely by headlines and political rhetoric, summer in the West has become a war zone of wildfire. The image is no longer of family picnics at the lake. The lake is busy filling giant buckets dangling from helicopters, which dump their taxpayer-funded loads onto fires that could not care less. One critic remarks that […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
A fire maverick is resurrected
The work of Omer C. Stewart reminds us just how far we’ve come in our thinking about fire. In Forgotten Fires, Henry T. Lewis and M. Kat Anderson have resurrected Stewart’s 1954 manuscript, outlined the events of his life, and critiqued his research based on current knowledge of fire. Stewart wrote at a time when […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Film sheds light on sacred spaces
Many Americans look for divinity inside a church, temple or synagogue. But for American Indians, places of worship exist beyond the confines of walls, in the landscape itself. Now, a film by Christopher McLeod exposes the obstacles American Indians face when they try to protect their sacred places. In the Light of Reverence features the […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Calendar
The 16th annual Arizona Hydrological Society’s Symposium will be held in Mesa on September 17-20. This year’s theme is “Sustainability Issues of Arizona’s Regional Watersheds.” To register, call Pete Kroopnick at 602-567-3850 or log onto www.azhydrosoc.org. The Water Education Foundation is holding a tour of Northern California’s water facilities and fisheries from September 24-26. Participants […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
A tale of tough women walks out of the past
Why do we take this trip? Well, to make money … I have simply got to make a stake some way, for I don’t want to lose the farm and it is the only way I can see of saving it. — Helga Estby, quoted in the Spokane Spokesman-Review, May 5, 1896 In 1896, when […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Editor’s Note
The tribes believe the payments did not cover what they lost. The 1971 court ruling only calculated the land’s market value, not the other economic and cultural losses the tribes sustained when the federal government divided up their reservation, and sold off more than 400,000 acres to non-Indians. On the question of dollars alone, a […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Don’t give bison range back to tribes
I must respond to the article, “Back on the range?” (HCN, 7/7/03). The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes were paid TWICE for the land that became the National Bison Range: Once at $1.56 per acre in the early 1900s, and again in 1971, when the tribal government successfully sued the federal government and won something […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
The Wilderness Society’s fire policy, clarified
I am writing to clarify a statement regarding policy positions of The Wilderness Society in the debate over fire and fuels legislation (HCN, 7/7/03: As fires rage, governors counsel discretion). I believe the statement that we support “loosening up environmental laws” could be taken wrong and wish to set the record straight. The Wilderness Society […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Vidler is a water predator
Matt Jenkins did a good job of tying together the complex threads of the Vidler Water Company story (HCN, 8/4/03: Pipe Dreams), a mind-boggling tale of the potential horrors of water commodification and the boundless greed of resource predators like Vidler. Vidler certainly deserves our wary attention, but it is also important to point out […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
More helicopters to buzz Glacier Park
The skies over Glacier National Park will be noisier this summer, and helicopters lugging seat-belted tourists don’t deserve all the blame. Park managers are increasing their own helicopter and airplane traffic to do backcountry chores, adding 52 flights to their recent average of 50 per summer. According to an environmental assessment, the park’s air force […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Groovers required for Deschutes boaters
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 […]
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 […]