Western senators parry over the nation’s future energy supply
Energy bill will likely boost drilling in the Rockies
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 […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Project puts tribal lands back on the map
Speak of maps, and most people think of lines drawn on paper. But American Indians have navigated the land for thousands of years using mental maps created from generations of stories and oral history. For them, the landscape is a fusion of familiar landmarks and mythical or real events that happened there. Since 1999, the […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Calendar
The Seattle Audubon Society has field trips planned through September, including a tour of the lower Duwamish River and a geological look at Mount Rainier. For more information, call 206-523-4483 or visit www.seattleaudubon.org. The first statewide Gunnison Sage Grouse Summit will be held in the Telluride, Colo., area on Sept. 24-25. Until Aug. 15, the […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Red Earth: desert poems resurrected
I’ve seen her pass with eyes upon the road — An old bent woman in a bronze black shawl, With skin as dried and wrinkled as a mummy’s, As brown as a cigar-box, and her voice Like the low vibrant strings of a guitar. And I have fancied from the girls about What she was […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
It’s time to pay in proportion to our impacts
I’m following the debate about bicycles vs. horsepackers vs. hikers with the same bemusement that I do the debate of wilderness vs. protected vs. multiple use. The real essence of the debate is that some fat guy in a quad runner with a case of Bud Lite, a carton of Marlboros, and an AR15 is […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Climbers are a sign of bigger problems
Examining the attitudes, rhetoric and actions of the new generation of rock climbers is illustrative of an ethic that places personal “freedom” above conservation (HCN, 7/7/03: Invasion of the rock jocks). Repeatedly, The Access Fund has, as the executive director proudly proclaims, “played hardball with land managers,” by associating with the very worst stewards of […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Climbers need to police themselves
Thanks for showing both sides of the climbing-impact issue (HCN, 7/7/03: Invasion of the rock jocks). I am a 41-year-old who has been climbing for over 25 years. I’ve done both bolt-free traditional and bolted sport-route first ascents. As much as I would like to deny it, climbers do impact the environment in many adverse […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Bison range fight is not about Indian rights
Your story about the hand-over of three national wildlife refuges to a Montana tribe oversimplified a very complex issue (HCN, 7/7/03: Back on the range?). Despite your portrayal of talks between the Department of the Interior and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes as a unique attempt to reunite the tribes with bison and lands […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Judge says Klamath plan needs revisions
A federal judge has sent the Bureau of Reclamation back to the drawing board with the management plan for the Klamath River Basin. In Oakland, Calif., Judge Saundra Brown Armstong called parts of the plan “arbitrary and capricious” and demanded that the National Marine Fisheries Service revise its biological opinion, on which the management plan […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
The Latest Bounce
A federal judge has kicked President Clinton’s Roadless Rule to the curb: In mid-July, U.S. District Judge Clarence A. Brimmer ruled that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Wilderness Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by declaring 58.5 million acres off-limits to road building, mining and logging (HCN, 7/30/01: Bush fails to defend roadless […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Heard Around the West
COLORADO Your poinsettia isn’t wilting, it’s trying to warn you. June Medford, a Colorado State University biologist, came up with the idea to genetically engineer plants to tattle on terrorists. How would the plants accomplish this? By changing color in the presence of a biological or chemical agent. The potential is huge, claims USA Today: […]