Transgenic superfish may be the next thing to hit supermarket shelves
Genetic engineering turns salmon into fast food
Posted inJune 23, 2003: 'Sound science' goes sour
Colorado Supreme Court turns tide in favor of kayakers
Boaters get to keep water in the rivers while farmers watch in dismay
Posted inJune 23, 2003: 'Sound science' goes sour
Dear Friends
HCN in the spotlight Thanks go out to all the readers who have written e-mails, postcards and letters in recent weeks to comment on the paper’s new look. So far, the reviews have been mostly positive: “GREAT,” “easier to read,” “handsome and easy to handle,” “a job well done,” “I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new […]
Posted inJune 23, 2003: 'Sound science' goes sour
Hear that whistle blow
Last year, Republican strategist Frank Luntz wrote a report, coaching Republicans on how to talk about the environment. Straight Talk is a fascinating, albeit nauseating, read — particularly the section about science. “Americans unanimously believe all environmental rules and regulations should be based on sound science and common sense,” it says. Then, Luntz does a […]
Posted inJune 23, 2003: 'Sound science' goes sour
Sound science goes sour
As federal scientists come under the gun from bureaucrats and politicians, some are becoming fed up, and one high-profile biologist has spoken out.
Posted inWotr
Once touched by drought, you never forget
From the mothers in my family I learned what poverty and drought were like during the 1930s. To them, these were experiences so profound they became proper nouns: the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl. Not quite 30 years later, when I was a boy verging on gangly teenager, a thunderstorm of unusual menace advanced one […]
Posted inWotr
Environmentalists have one big blind spot
I hope no one yanks my green card for this admission, but I’m beginning to hate the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It’s not that I’m for drilling. There’s no reason to drill in a place set aside for wildlife when more efficient vehicles could eliminate demand for the oil. But as a Westerner newly relocated […]
Posted inWotr
Idaho’s Sen. Larry Craig should butt out of the whole dam business
The company that powers the computer I write on is getting the kind of attention corporations loathe. Idaho Power Co. and its three Hells Canyon dams on the Snake River have been thrust into the center of a controversy over a provision of the energy bill that would give power companies more control over the […]
Posted inWotr
Learning to love the power of fire
Thick weeds, old lumber, and brush surround our house, about a mile of dirt road from St. Ignatius, Mont., and about 45 miles north of Missoula. Neighbors and friends, accustomed to rural ways, suggested a fire to clean things up a bit. Despite childhood stints in the country, I am a Montana city person adjusting […]
Posted inWotr
Holes Western-style, from a century of mining
Gold has long been advertised as the “gift that lasts a lifetime.” True to the slogan, gold does last a lifetime, as demonstrated by the enduring shine that gold jewelry and coins display even after thousands of years of being buried or lost at sea. Unfortunately, gold’s shine isn’t the only thing that lasts a […]
Posted inWotr
Giving back the bison
In the 1870s, a Salish Indian brave named Walking Coyote led a handful of bison calves from the Great Plains westward to the home of his people in Montana’s Mission Valley. Some traditions say he did so because he saw that Europeans were hunting the beast to extinction. Bison proliferated in the lush valley, which […]
Posted inWotr
Protecting fake wilderness goes against the law
Environmental groups are going “wild” over the Interior Department’s recent decisions to recognize Western road claims and chuck out the Clinton administration’s wilderness study policy. Before getting into the angry rhetoric, however, a bit of history is in order. This entire flapdoodle hinges on interpretation of two laws, Revised Statute 2477 — RS 2477 for […]
Posted inWotr
There’s a way to end the RS 2477 road mess
The West’s public lands face many 21st century problems, including pressure from population growth and energy development. But they also face an old problem — the legacy of the Mining Law of 1866, which granted rights-of-way “for the construction of highways” on federal lands not set aside for other uses. That grant became section 2477 […]
Posted inWotr
Who needs Superfund when we’ve got reality TV?
By the end of the year, only $28 million will be left in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund account. Superfund pays for the reclamation of abandoned toxic waste sites, and $28 million barely affords a study just to figure out how to clean up one of the 1,200 deserted dumps wasting away in American […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Ray Ring’s Wrong
So Ray Ring wants us to stand back and let the forests burn (HCN, 5/26/03: A losing battle)? Get real, dude. Even if fires of the past were truly catastrophic, huge, epic or whatever, and are therefore ecologically desirable today (I disagree), the fact remains that there is a modern civilization now in place in […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Inside HCN
New from Writers on the Range “The jacket of a popular author’s book says that she lives on a ‘40-acre ranch.’ No real rancher would care to make that statement. Similarly, only uninformed journalists could write, ‘Sen. Jones lives on his 10-acre emu ranch.’ The correct way to write that sentence would be, ‘Mr. Jones […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Look before you eat
Surely, we would feel better if we knew that food companies were doing everything possible to minimize food hazards, and that the government was looking out for our interests and making sure food companies were doing what they were supposed to. In the absence of such reassurance, we lose trust. — Marion Nestle, Safe Food […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Women take the wheel
In the 1990s, the bumper sticker “Thelma and Louise Live!” sprouted on mini-vans driven by mothers in suburbs across America, proclaiming a craving for a journey beyond the kids’ soccer fields. The 19 women writers who contributed to A Road of Her Own: Women’s Journeys in the West have peeled out of the daily commute, […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Glen Canyon Voices
Glen Canyon is such a compelling intellectual topic because it is full of contradictions: It has been destroyed, and yet a movement is afoot to bring it back … it was a place perhaps equal in grandeur to Grand Canyon, and yet it was dammed and inundated with only the faintest puff of dissent; it […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Calendar
Western Writers of America and Western State College are hosting the 3rd Annual Writers Workshop in Gunnison, Colo., on July 10-14. To register for Writing the West, go to www.writingthewest.com or call Larry at 970-943-3035. Head to John Day, Ore., for the fifth annual SolWest Renewable Energy Fair on July 25-27. The fair will feature […]