NATION The debate over whether people should pay to play on public lands is heating up once again. The Recreation Fee Demonstration Program, created by Congress in 1996, requires people to pay a user fee to visit certain forests, parks or deserts (HCN, 2/14/00: Land of the fee). Although it is due to expire by […]
Congress may agree on fees
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
The Latest Bounce
The Bureau of Land Management may soon have a new boss. President Bush has nominated Kathleen Clarke, the director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, to oversee management of the 264 million acres of BLM land. Though Clarke has maintained a low profile in her current job, local environmentalists criticize her handling of the […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
A murder mystery on Whiskey Mountain
DUBOIS, Wyo. – John and I are hiking on Sheep Ridge on a blustery day in February, and we are busy counting sheep. These Rocky Mountain bighorns look healthy – their dusty brown coats thick, their bodies sleek – but their looks belie the numbers, and their numbers tell the story. The sheep are dying […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Heard around the West
How do we resemble our fellow Westerners – the black bears? Let me count some of the ways. We like to share dessert. Near Ketchum, Idaho, a 225-pounder broke into a home, opened the freezer and pulled out half a gallon of rocky road ice cream, reports the Idaho Express. When the home’s residents saw […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
New forest chief becomes a lame duck
It could turn out to be the shortest tenure as Forest Service chief in history. Dale N. Bosworth was named the 15th chief of the United States Forest Service on April 12, 2001. He may have made himself a lame duck on Friday, Aug. 24, 2001, when he removed Brad Powell as regional forester for […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
New dump may trash Tacoma’s water
Locals worry they’ll drink ‘garbage juice’
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Nevada tribe says kitty litter plan stinks
Fur is flying over an open-pit clay mine
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Gas industry gambles on New Mexico mesa
Federal plan seeks balance in rare desert grasslands
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Cease-fire on the Tonto Forest
Forest Service bans ‘plinking’ on 81,000 acres in Arizona
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Integrity and passion
W.L. Minckley, who stands out in Craig Childs’ lead essay as a three-dimensional figure of integrity and passion, died June 22 in a Mesa, Ariz., hospital from complications associated with treatment for cancer. Dr. Minckley, 65, had mentored graduate students at Arizona State University in Tempe from 1963 until his illness in June. While he […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Dear Friends
In wolf’s clothing Because HCN does not cover religion, we generally do not take positions on reincarnation. However, if there is reincarnation, we expect Michael Robinson to come back as a wolf. Michael, now a staffer with the Center for Biological Diversity in Pinos Altos, N.M., and a former HCN intern, cares more about wolves […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
The rise and fall of a desert stream
I stopped. Swallowed. Looked around my feet, my eyes burning with sweat and light. A hundred and nineteen degrees Fahrenheit, at least. This was the hottest July on record for Arizona. It was, in fact, the hottest single month recorded in all of North America. If I prayed for rain, the sky would laugh at […]
Posted inWotr
Floating past ghosts on the Green River
The White Rim is a strip of manila sandstone on the edge of the Green River canyon. We’ve been following it for three days now, floating this 60-mile flatwater stretch above Cataract Canyon in Utah, one small raft and a kayak; 20 miles yesterday, 15 or so today. Sometimes delicately thin, sometimes robust and thick, […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Yucca Mountain coverage biased
Dear HCN, Nobody has more distrust of the government in affairs radioactive than I do. My credentials are impeccable. My brother and I both had occurrences of thyroid cancer 20 years after leaving Richland, Wash., where we grew up at the Hanford plant in the ’40s and ’50s. Most likely we were contaminated by drinking […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Rainbow family vs. environment
Dear HCN, I find the “essay” on the back of the July 30 issue full of hypocrisy. Writer Bill Cope would have the reader believe that the Rainbow Family of Living Light was a very environmentally conscious group. Come on, now. I saw firsthand what that group did to the lands of the national forest […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Harvesting ancient farming
Western agriculture is a risky business. Even if crops survive the frequent summer droughts, their soil can be washed away by fast and furious monsoon rains. Brook LeVan, co-director of the nonprofit Sustainable Settings in Aspen, Colo., wants to help farmers avoid this annual double jeopardy. This summer, with the help of two teachers and […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Arctic Refuge
“When a lone wolf howls it sounds distinctively alone. When a pack howls, the sounds harmonize and mix until the voices of a few blend into the chorus of a multitude. A call answered and passed on. A call to gather.” – Lentfer & Servid in Arctic Refuge: A Circle of Testimony That the call […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Small steps for change
A third-generation Coloradan, Jessica Sherwood remembers returning to her hometown of Boulder after a 10-year hiatus in Washington, D.C. “I actually cried,” she recalls, on seeing the once-pastoral corridor between Denver and Boulder transformed into an almost continuous mass of houses and malls. Determined to make a difference, Sherwood decided to tout alternative transportation to […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Dangerous parks
National park rangers say inadequate funding is adding new risks to their jobs. Crime in parks is on the rise, and most parks don’t have the money to beef up their law enforcement. To publicize the problem, the U.S. Park Rangers Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police has listed the top 10 most dangerous […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
The wild West lives
Jack Hunter abandons his Sierra Club lobbying job in D.C. and a marriage gone sour, eager to settle on life’s placid surface near the Diablo National Forest of southwestern New Mexico. He takes up horseshoeing and jumps into a meaningless affair, enjoying the respite from strenuous work for hopeless causes. But then he meets a […]