In the summer of 2000, in the midst of one of the most intense droughts in the Southwest in decades, I was radicalized by fire. During an 11-day backpack across the Gila Wilderness, my companion and I came across one of the rarest events in the cow-burnt landscapes of the West – a gentle fire, […]
Ranching advocates lack a rural vision
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Cow-free crowd ignores science, sprawl
The West is tiny when pitted against our imagining of it. We imagined the buffalo would never be extinguished and the beaver would never be trapped out. We imagined big trees would always stand over the next ridge. But in a short time, the mountain men and buffalo hunters and loggers rolled over this alleged […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Condit Dam removal hits snags
Sediment behind dam could trash salmon habitat downstream
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Farmers band together to stave off sprawl
In California’s Central Valley, a strategy for steering growth takes shape
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Outside the agency, it’s a cold, cruel world
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “The push is on to privatize federal jobs.” Displaced federal workers will likely enter a brave new world when they step outside their agencies. The life of a contract forest crew, for example, is a far cry […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Dear friends
Kiss a super idea goodbye The rest of the world knows the West for its wide-open spaces and its national parks. And sure, the region is home to some of the nation’s most spectacular wildlands – but it’s also home to some of its most spectacular messes. Our mountain towns are pocked with the remnants […]
Posted inDecember 9, 2002: Life in the wasteland
Life in the wasteland
A small Utah town unearths a toxic legacy just as its only hope for rescue, the federal Superfund cleanup program, blows away
Posted inWotr
Some lessons about coyotes stick in your mind
A friend from Nevada, an environmentalist, wrote me recently to say she’s been reading the minutes of the Nevada Wildlife Commission, which is using M-4s to kill coyotes in cases of “livestock predation.” The commission is now talking about whether to allow the cyanide guns in “cases of game predation,” otherwise known as doing what […]
Posted inWotr
The view from ground zero at Oregon’s biggest fire in 100 years
This Halloween I camped in the frozen ash near ground zero of the 499,968-acre Biscuit Fire, the nation’s largest wildfire of 2002, and the biggest in Oregon for a century. My wife was not wild about the idea. The Pacific Northwest’s largest newspaper, The Oregonian, had just promoted a three-part feature on Biscuit, billing it […]
Posted inWotr
Ranchers in the West should call it quits
In the summer of 2000, in the midst of one of the most intense droughts in the Southwest in decades, I was radicalized by fire. During an 11-day backpack across the Gila Wilderness, my companion and I came across one of the rarest events in the cow-burnt landscapes of the West — a gentle fire, […]
Posted inWotr
Eco-farmers seek to grow habitat as well as crops
Northern California farmer John Anderson is on the cutting edge of a new movement that seeks ways for farmers to incorporate stewardship practices into the daily pursuit of their livelihoods. Anderson and others believe it’s a key survival strategy for small farmers, plus a way to get beyond bitter struggles with environmentalists. Ultimately, it would […]
Posted inWotr
It’s good to be impassioned!
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 inWotr
Why one Nevada town is the last, smartest boomtown
It takes an hour for a commuter propjet to cover the 230 miles of desolate salt flats and sagebrush between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Elko, Nev. By the time passengers glimpse the alpine meadows and snowfields of the Ruby Mountains just east of Elko, the aircraft is already making a bumpy descent toward an […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
What were Arizona voters thinking?
Dear HCN, Until I read your October article on Arizona politics, I felt secure in the assumption that Florida had long since outdistanced Texas in having the stupidest, most corruptible voting population in the nation. I now find that I can hold onto that belief only by assuming that the entire electorate of Arizona is […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Population growth is the problem
Dear HCN, Kudos to Ray Ring for his story, “The Politics of Growth,” in your Oct. 14 issue. But the article omitted the most crucial part of the “politics of growth.” His article and so many others you publish that describe all the symptoms of continued population growth, should end with the following sentence: “We […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Nonhumans aren’t a nuisance
Dear HCN, I want to thank HCN for its cover story (HCN, 10/28/02: Shawdow creatures) about nonhumans in Seattle and elsewhere. I work near the University of Washington, and I feel grateful every day that some nonhumans consent to be there at all, much less to thrive on our wastes, in our hedgerows and backyards. […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Religious labels are irrelevant
Dear HCN, l was startled to see one of our Idaho senatorial candidates characterized in HCN as a “Jewish Wall Street refugee” (HCN, 10/14/02: The politics of growth). “Wall Street” is relevant; “Jewish” is not. Mr. Blinken is not running as a Zionist, and how he prays has not been an issue here. In fact, […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
A Western water parable
By way of introduction, writer Robert Glennon recounts the tale of Ubar, “the fabled city of ancient Arabia known as ‘the Atlantis of the Sands.’ ” Sometime between 300 and 500 A.D., Ubar’s inhabitants drank dry the aquifer over which their city was built, and the town promptly collapsed into the emptied cavern below. That […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
A slap of Western reality
“Piety, kitsch, self-importance, sentimentalism – these deadly literary sins seem to thrive on good clean country air,” writes William Finnegan in his foreword to William Gruber’s book, On All Sides Nowhere. Finnegan hails Gruber for avoiding these sins in his memoir of life in northern Idaho. In 1972, Gruber and his wife moved from Philadelphia […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Putting green Portland on the map
Though Portland has earned a reputation as a green city, with its well-publicized parks, organic markets and light-rail lines, even savvy locals find it challenging to connect the city’s disparate venues. The search just got easier with the Portland Green Map, a map with 800 resources and points of interest for Portlanders who lean green. […]