OREGON Plans to dredge the Columbia River are one step closer to fruition, thanks to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which has changed its biological opinion for the third time since 1999. In late May, NMFS, in charge of endangered salmon recovery, found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ proposal to dredge 106.5 miles […]
Columbia dredging closer
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Bomb blasting goes bust
CALIFORNIA After more than four decades, Army officials have halted the open-pit burning and blasting of obsolete munitions and rocket motors at Sierra Army Depot near Herlong. The depot’s open-air weapons destruction was challenged in federal court early last year by a coalition of Indian tribes, environmental groups and private citizens (HCN, 8/13/01: Depot neighbors […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Growth boundary grows
COLORADO All along the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies, development continues to roll out like freshly laid sod. Five years ago, in an effort to limit sprawl, a voluntary association of business leaders, developers and elected officials from 48 local governments drew up a plan that included an urban growth boundary. But the growth […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Is this wilderness perverted?
UTAH Create a wilderness, stop a nuclear waste dump: It sounds like a crowd pleaser. Utah Rep. Jim Hansen’s amendment to the Defense Authorization Act would establish about half a million acres of wilderness in western Utah, much of it near an active testing range for military aircraft (HCN, 5/27/02: Hansen pops a wheelie). It […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Temporary protection yanked in the Siskiyou
OREGON The Siskiyou National Forest, home to five Wild and Scenic rivers, a healthy salmon and steelhead population, and rare salamanders and wolverines, just lost protection from the drill. In January 2001, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt placed a temporary moratorium on new mining leases for more than 1.2 million acres of the forest. The Bureau […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
The Latest Bounce
The Department of the Interior has approved the controversial Fence Lake coal mine in New Mexico (HCN, 10/8/01: Salt Woman confronts a coal mine). The Salt River Project will mine 80 million tons of coal to generate electricity for Phoenix, but Indians at the Zuni Pueblo worry that the project could destroy trails and grave […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
In the lion’s eye
I like to work alone, far from other people, in the deserts and mountains of southeastern Idaho. These are the forgotten lands, rarely seen by the public and only occasionally by agency personnel. On one job I will always remember, I am in the Black Pine Range, working as an independent biologist for the Black […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Heard around the West
It is rare that reading a press release leaves us feeling a sense of amazement, if not downright wonder. The one that follows, from Yellowstone National Park, was sent to the news media by staffer Olivia McCombs under the ho-hum headline: “Bear Incident in Yellowstone National Park.” But here’s the story that followed: “Abigail Thomas, […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Restoring the West, goat by goat
In the early 1990s, Leslie Barclay bought a ranch a half-hour south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was from back East, and like many newcomers to the West with some money and energy, she was romantic about the region and the land. She understood that it wasn’t in great shape, but she thought it […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
2,997 … 2,998 … 2,999
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story about the killer-bee invasion of the West, headlined: The Buzz Business. Counting killer bee stings is a tedious chore. Usually the total is estimated, but one person gets exact counts – Justin Schmidt, a research entomologist who’s spent 22 years at the Carl Hayden Bee Research […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Can green-certified lumber make it?
Some foresters say environmental management doesn’t reap extra profit
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Mount Hood recreation may go big time
Will a destination resort push out pear orchards?
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Earth First!er Judi Bari avenged at last
Federal court finds FBI and police violated activists’ free speech
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Dear Friends
Conflagration Troubles of the modern West continue to break out around the home of High Country News. A month ago in this space, we talked about coalbed-methane developers beginning to target the mesa slopes near our office in Paonia. Now the trouble is wildfire in areas where people have chosen to live. Even though the […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
The buzz business
Some people try to make a killing on killer bees
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Take a look at California’s dairies
Dear HCN, Thanks to author Stephen Stuebner for the excellent article on dairy problems in the Magic Valley (HCN, 4/15/02: Raising a stink). I was raised on an irrigated dairy farm (70 head of Holsteins) in the Orchard Valley area south of Wendell, Idaho, and still have family there. During visits over the last 10 […]
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Margolis blows it again
Dear HCN, For someone like myself, writing to HCN has about the same benefits as a Kurd appealing to Saddam, but here goes nothing, anyway. Jon Margolis’ monument (HCN, 5/13/02: New monuments: Planning by numbers) analysis was linked to me and I had to surf it up – and as usual, Jon blows it. The […]
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Kind words are more than coronets
Dear HCN, Your last issues are so readable and well-written, I can’t believe it’s the same paper I struggled to understand five years ago in order to better politically advocate for the environment. The way it’s being written now, I have found that high school and even junior high students can educate themselves from it. […]
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Yellowstone rangers bound and gagged
Dear HCN, Living in Yellowstone National Park, I wanted to get a first-hand opinion on the snowmobile debate. I’d read reports from the EPA, the snowmobile industry, experts on flora and fauna and everything else, but I hadn’t heard the voice that I felt knew the most: the park rangers. So I asked some park […]
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Interior’s conflicting interests
Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles is in a pickle. Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency effectively delayed the drilling of 39,000 coalbed-methane wells in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin – a major energy project Griles and the Bush administration had hoped to expedite (HCN, 11/5/01: Wyoming’s powder keg ). The EPA rated Interior’s environmental […]