While your favorite organic food brand guarantees a pesticide-free, responsibly grown product, it’s usually fortified with a hefty price tag. There’s relief: The Portland, Ore.-based Food Alliance offers consumers and farmers a label — guaranteeing products grown and harvested in equitable and safe conditions, using sustainable farming practices, and with little or no pesticides — […]
Eco-groovy food for skinny wallets
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Born to be winter wild
For years, the only national organization representing winter recreation required members to embrace the two-stroke engine. But two years ago, a group of backcountry winter-recreation groups in California, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada united to create the Winter Wildlands Alliance to work for “human-powered” winter recreation on public lands. Today, the Boise, Idaho-based Alliance serves as […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
As the dust settles
Asbestos from one of the nation’s worst Superfund sites has killed over 200 in Libby, Mont., and infected hundreds more with lung disease (HCN, 3/13/00: Libby’s dark secret). To outsiders, life in Libby might seem unfathomable. But in the video documentary, Dust to Dust, director Michael Brown shows how residents manage to persevere in the […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Short Takes
Bruce Babbitt will be the keynote speaker at the 26th Annual Public Lands and Resources Law Review Conference. “Public Lands, Private Gains” will be held at the University of Montana-Missoula on March 13-15. For more information, visit www.umt.edu/ publicland/26conf.htm. To register, call 406/243-6568. Head to Sacramento for the Water Education Foundation’s 20th Annual Executive Briefing […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Canada lays down the law on endangered species
After 10 years of debate, Canada has become the last country in North America to pass an endangered species law. The Species at Risk Act (SARA) passed Parliament in December, and goes into effect later in 2003. Unlike the U.S. Endangered Species Act, SARA protects only “federal species,” such as fish, migratory birds, and plants […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Where’d you get that cactus, partner?
Not only do southern Arizona cities get water from Colorado, Utah and Wyoming; now, they’re importing cacti from Texas. Prickly Trade, a new study from the World Wildlife Fund, reveals that cities such as Tucson and Phoenix are importing much of their drought-tolerant landscaping from west Texas. Between 1998 and 2001, almost 100,000 succulent plants […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
The Latest Bounce
Interior Secretary Gale Norton has announced that 70 percent of full-time National Park Service jobs may be farmed out to the private sector — up from the 10 percent predicted last year (HCN, 12/9/02: The push is on to privatize federal jobs). The Interior Department paid CH2MHill, a private company, $5 million to design a […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Timber proposal undercuts Quincy Library plan
A plan the Forest Service is touting as “a measurable, science-based assessment” of logging’s impact on California spotted owls and other forest species is raising hackles in California. The proposal, released in December, calls for cutting up to 600 million board-feet of timber — enough to build 60,000 houses — and bulldozing 160 miles of […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Loggers got scant help as industry toppled
Loggers and their communities were left out in the cold during the collapse of timber cutting on federal lands in the late 1990s. This is the conclusion of a recent study of the Northwest Economic Initiative, launched in tandem with President Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan in 1994. The study, produced by a nonprofit California think […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Spotted owl back under microscope
The timber industry is celebrating a court decision which forces the federal government to take another look at the most controversial of old-growth forest dwellers: the northern spotted owl and the marbled murrelet. Timber industry groups sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to reassess the population and habitat of the birds, as […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
On the road with Cactus Ed
One day early in the 1970s, Ed Abbey and I were cruising along a southern Utah highway in a forest-green Chevy that had rolled off the assembly line some 20 years before. Ed had given a friend $100 for it in the spring and we were both pleased that it was still running now, early […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Heard Around The West
President George Bush, reputed to create pet names for just about everybody, has one for environmentalists: They are “green, green lima beans,” according to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. If you’re one of those green beans, you might think twice about getting a divorce. A new study in the journal Nature says splitting the […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Excerpts from Gov. Dave Freudenthal’s inaugural speech Jan. 6, as he took office
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Wyoming at a crossroads.” “For too many decades, we have dreamed of a day when the government of these United States would transfer the ownership of its lands to state or private hands. While this dream may occupy our hearts, it cannot be the […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
The life of an energy colony
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Wyoming at a crossroads.” 1869: Wyoming is formed as an official territory for one purpose only: advancing the cause of the Union Pacific Railroad. The railroad wants access to southwest Wyoming’s coal fields on its transcontinental journey to the West Coast. Gov. John Campbell […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
It’s time for a new law of the river
On New Year’s Eve, the normally placid pumping station of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California at Lake Havasu felt tense. Armed security guards on the scene since 9/11 seemed grim, and tourists seeking bird-watching information were turned away. It recalled those old black-and-white pictures from when Owens Valley farmers blew up the original […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Conservation pays off in a desert town
A plan to purchase state land could save open space — and make money for schools
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Villagers rebel against sprawl
Farmers and environmentalists team up along the Rio Grande
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Dear Friends
The defrost cycle First, a little follow-up to Jeffrey Lockwood’s cover story in the last issue, (HCN, 2/3/03: The death of the Super Hopper). Locusts aren’t the only things being disgorged by glaciers as global warming takes its toll on the West’s alpine ice. The Los Angeles Times reported in January that scientists are scouring […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2003: Wyoming at a crossroads
Wyoming at a crossroads
Can a new governor bust the Cowboy State out of its stagnant economic corral?
Posted inWotr
Why the growth apologists are wrong
There are two arguments defending sprawl in the West that never seem to end, and I hope I can convince you that both are flawed. The first argument is that current residents must not try to “shut the door” on growth because they have no right to deny others what they enjoy. Forget for a […]