What remains so astonishing about John Wesley Powell is that someone whose policy recommendations were almost totally ignored while he was alive should continue to command the attention of so many Western observers and decision makers a century after his death. Powell’s career studying the West included expeditions into the Rocky Mountains and, most notably, […]
Powell’s enduring teachings
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
A struggling mountain town looks for a lift
Silverton, Colo., hopes a backcountry chairlift will boost its fortunes
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Cooperating on the Valles Caldera
A public preserve in New Mexico puts its trust in trustees
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Stargazers defend darkness in Arizona
Flagstaff becomes the first “International Dark-Sky City”
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Ruling ripples through salmon country
Fisheries Service must rethink hatchery policy
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Dear Friends
From the inside out There may be no more powerful agent for change in any agency than someone who has worked on the inside. During the 1980s, a Forest Service timber marker from Oregon named Jeff DeBonis became sick of his role in overcutting the public lands. He founded an organization for his fellow Forest […]
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Closing the wounds
A plucky group of New Mexico activists pushes mining reclamation into the 21st century
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Sabotage isn’t terrorism
Dear HCN, Your article on alleged “ecoterrorism” is misleading and perpetuates the propaganda of polluting industry representatives who have already co-opted mass media (HCN, 10/8/01: Terrorist attacks echo in the West). The Vail fires of 1998, which are better categorized as sabotage, have little to do with terrorism. Terrorism is “best defined as the use […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
A capital offense in Canada
Dear HCN, As an American who immigrated to Canada a couple years ago, I was curious to read your story about efforts to protect the Rocky Mountain Front on our side of the border (HCN, 10/8/01: Whoa! Canada!). While I thought the article was generally fairly good, there were two obvious errors of fact that […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Romanticizing rodeo abuse
Dear HCN, Rebecca Clarren’s review of the book Riders of the West (HCN, 10/8/01: Indians are cowboys), about the Indian rodeo circuit, contained a sentence I found most disturbing: “It depicts how rodeo helps Indian youth create a legacy of hope and pride, transcending the severe poverty and rampant alcoholism that often await them beyond […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
ESA shuts down collaboration
Dear HCN, Paul Larmer’s opinion, “The enduring Endangered Species Act,” left me bewildered (HCN, 9/24/01: The enduring Endangered Species Act). From the trenches of the rural West, the ESA doesn’t seem to be accomplishing nearly the wonders that you claim. In fact, it appears to be doing the opposite. You wrote, “We need both litigation […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Shocking inaccuracy
Dear HCN, I was shocked to find myself quoted as saying that environmentalists are “bayoneting the wounded” in your piece on the Eagle Timber Sale (HCN, 9/24/01: The timber sale that won’t die). These were not my words and I thought that I had made that clear to the reporter. In retrospect, I regret having […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Mining reform gets the shaft
When then-secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt shepherded a new set of hard-rock mining regulations into law on Jan. 20, mining critics and reformers hoped the new rules would usher in an era of more environmentally responsible mining. But President Bush’s inauguration brought a new cast of characters into the Interior Department. Faced with three […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Will the circle be broken?
WASHINGTON Washington may log land formerly set aside for the endangered northern spotted owl. In 1997, the state implemented a Habitat Conservation Plan, which allowed the state to log some owl territories if it set aside other land for habitat. As an extra layer of protection, then-Department of Natural Resources Public Lands Commissioner Jennifer Belcher […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Savage controversy peacefully resolved
OREGON After a decade of political discord and legal brawls with conservationists, an Oregon irrigation district has agreed to breach the Savage Rapids Dam (HCN, 6/22/98: Locals stand behind an aging dam). The dam’s sole function is to provide irrigation water from the Rogue River to local farmers, but according to federal agencies, it kills […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Bonneville trout denied protection
GREAT BASIN Environmental groups have stepped up to the plate three times for the Bonneville cutthroat trout since 1979, asking the Fish and Wildlife Service to grant the trout a slot on the endangered species list. On Oct. 9, the agency threw the fish’s defenders their third strike. Officials said that threats to cutthroat habitat, […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Cows to heat homes
OREGON This winter, manure from 400 Holstein cows will begin generating enough electricity to power 65 homes in the Willamette Valley. The manure will be stored above ground in “digester” tanks where, in heated, airtight conditions, bacteria produce gas in a few weeks. The methane is siphoned off to fuel generators that convert the gas […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Pollution pickle sours landowner
NORTH DAKOTA Like tremolite asbestos fibers, the Montana-based W.R. Grace & Co. vermiculite contamination problem gets stickier with time. Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency discovered asbestos-laden soil around a storage warehouse owned by the Minot Park District in Minot, N.D. While the agency is currently testing the extent of the contamination, EPA coordinator […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Homeland security drafts rangers
Scores of Western public-land rangers are no longer at their regular jobs, patrolling rangeland for illegal off-road activities or investigating endangered species smuggling. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, rangers from the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service have been assigned to guard federal buildings in Washington, D.C., […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
The Latest Bounce
The battle over Canadian softwood lumber imports is heating up (HCN, 3/26/01: U.S. mills fall under Canadian ax). In August, the U.S. Commerce Department slapped a 19 percent countervailing duty on Canadian wood and followed it up with a 13 percent anti-dumping duty on Oct. 31; the agency is investigating subsidy and dumping allegations and […]