Dear HCN, I was heartened about the future of our public lands as I read the article on “Global market squeezes sheep ranchers” (HCN, 11/19/01: Global market squeezes sheep ranchers). As a long-term resident of Boise who frequently hikes and mountain bikes on public lands, I have experienced first-hand the effects of Brad Little’s and […]
Good riddance to the sheep
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Water is more precious than gas
Dear HCN, Thanks for the recent article on coalbed methane (CBM) in the Powder River Basin (HCN, 11/5/01: Wyoming’s powder keg). While some of our issues here in the Raton Basin are slightly different – fewer ranchers, more rural residential development, no celebrity poster child – we appreciate any visibility that CBM development gets. The […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
The Buffalo War: a maelstrom of Western issues
If there were one emblem of Western history, it might be the American buffalo. In Matthew Testa’s new documentary, The Buffalo War, that emblem becomes the focal point for an impassioned controversy. “The buffalo provide a mirror,” says Testa. “They reflect how we see ourselves and our place in wilderness. And that reflection is incredibly […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Audible biodiversity
The first few tracks of The Diversity of Animal Sounds take me from the enthusiastic song of a male satin bowerbird in Australia to the deep-toned, primordial growls of the American alligator to the unabashed mating grunts of a jaguar. I am amused, and then deliciously frightened, and finally, slightly embarrassed – I keep the […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
National grasslands up for review
The grasslands of the Northern Plains – primarily under U.S. Forest Service jurisdiction – are home to abundant wildlife, from deer and elk to endangered swift foxes, mountain plovers and ferruginous hawks. But they are also the site of promising oil and gas deposits. With the release of the final environmental impact statement for the […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Tribe’s pines fetch clean air credits
Last spring, Montana’s Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes were happy to improve wildlife habitat and water quality on their Flathead Indian Reservation by replanting 250 acres of burned land with ponderosa pines. But for the London-based company that is funding the restoration, satisfaction comes from how much carbon dioxide the growing trees will suck out […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
No go on state land reform
ARIZONA A coalition of developers, educators, ranchers and environmentalists has agreed to postpone an effort to preserve about 10 percent of Arizona’s 9.2 million acres of state trust land. Citing internal disagreement, the coalition has abandoned its attempt to put a preservation initiative on the 2002 ballot (HCN, 7/30/01: Not in our backyard). Since managers […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Show me the water
CALIFORNIA The California state assembly says developers must prove they have water rights before they receive final approval for their subdivisions. State legislators have debated a water-rights mandate for nearly a decade; it took the state’s electricity crisis (HCN, 1/29/01: Power on the loose), which raised the specter of natural resource shortages, to push Senate […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Griz numbers a mixed bag
WYOMING Federal biologists say the threatened Yellowstone grizzly bear population is healthy and increasing. This year, biologists counted 42 females with cubs in the grizzly bear recovery area, which encompasses Yellowstone National Park and surrounding areas for a total of 9,202 square miles, according to biologist Mark Haroldson. Last year, they counted only 35 bears […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Ridgetop home may be toppled
UTAH It was Bruce Daley’s dream to retire to Park City, Utah, and build his home on the most spectacular hilltop he could find. But his dream has turned into a nightmare. In the mid-1990s, the Tucson, Ariz., resident and former auto-body shop owner began the planning process for his ridgetop home in Park City. […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Pesky pike persist
CALIFORNIA They’re back. More than 5,000 spiny-tongued predatory pike are once again haunting the waters of northeastern California’s Lake Davis. Planted illegally in 1994, the voracious exotic fish resurfaced just 18 months after the California Department of Fish and Game spent $2 million poisoning the reservoir to get rid of them (HCN, 5/25/98: How California […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
A price tag for protest
OREGON Sitting in trees to save them may become a costly pastime, if the Oregon Department of Forestry has its way. Since August, protesters have prevented logging in the Tillamook State Forest by occupying platforms in the boughs of giant trees, and the department is considering an unusual method to deal with them: charging protesters […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Quincy collaboration heads to court
CALIFORNIA The Quincy Library Group has given up on collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service. Nearly nine years after developing a controversial management plan for 2.4 million acres of national forest land in Northeastern California, the coalition of environmentalists and civic and timber industry leaders has suspended its monthly meetings with agency officials. It now […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
GAO drops a bomb on Yucca Mountain
NEVADA With Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham expected to make a recommendation to President Bush sometime this winter about the Yucca Mountain project, a General Accounting Office audit has raised serious questions about the energy department’s investigation into the proposed nuclear waste dump site. The report, which was leaked to the press on Nov. 30, notes […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
The Latest Bounce
A resolution to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling has been derailed in the Senate (HCN, 11/5/01: The Arctic: A slave to luck). Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, attempted to force the issue through by hitching an amendment to a railroad retirement bill, but failure to build the needed 60 votes of support […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Cybermapping the West – a new view
Cybermapping is a template of the inside of things, a grand tapestry of our cumulative desires. It’s our shadowmap.
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Heard around the West
Can drinking milk be considered cool? Former Idaho Dairy Princess Colleen Underwood thought so, if she could just copy some tricks from Coca-Cola and Pepsi. So during her reign as cow-milk royalty two years ago, Underwood leased a vending machine, put photos of the Dixie Chicks guzzling milk on the front, then filled it with […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Economics with a heart, but no soul
In 1996, Thomas Michael Power wrote Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies, an economic study of the Interior West, in which everything that happened was for the good. If the West were not the best of all worlds, it was as good as life would get on the coasts. We had half the money, but twice […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Ranchers’ group adopts practical strategy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. One Montana environmental group grew from different roots than most of the movement. The Northern Plains Resource Council was founded by cattle ranchers who opposed coal strip-mining 30 years ago – and today, ranchers and farmers make up about half the 3,000 members. Moreover, […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
‘We better start moving ahead’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Wayne Hirst is an accountant in Libby, the small town in northwest Montana where asbestos mining has sickened hundreds and led to the town’s consideration as a Superfund site (HCN, 3/13/00: Libby’s dark secret). Libby is more than half busted, with the logging industry […]