UTAH Utah wilderness recently got a reprieve. In late June, a district judge ruled that three counties had illegally graded 16 undeveloped jeep tracks and footpaths located within Bureau of Land Management-maintained wilderness study areas and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The judge concluded that Garfield, Kane and San Juan counties had for several years […]
Counties cross the yellow line
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
The Latest Bounce
The Bonneville Power Administration has some good news. In late June, the Washington-based federal power company announced that a pending increase in power prices would amount to 46 percent, rather than the predicted 250 percent (HCN, 6/18/01: Transforming powers). BPA officials praised Northwest utilities and industries for reducing their energy demands by an average of […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Out of the woods, blithe spirit
Oh my! Oh dear! Imagine … 20,000 hippies. Not doing a lick of work. Messing up meadows like animals. Befouling streams like animals. Eating, sleeping, defecating like animals. Fornicating like bunny animals, thumping bongos, tooting flutes, gang-singing old Donovan songs, dancing around without a care in their heads like Jenna Bush in a cowboy bar, […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Heard around the West
Washington, D.C., satirist Mark Russell came to Cody, Wyo., for a fund raiser recently and found so much to poke fun at, he had 700 people in tears from laughing so hard, says Buzzy Hassrick in the Cody Enterprise. All of his material, Russell swore, came from reading the weekly Enterprise, an effort that took […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
This land might be your land
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. State trust land may have a single purpose, but each state has a different way of doing business. Most Western states lease trust land for logging and grazing, and many states have huge subsurface holdings that earn millions from mineral development. A few states […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
A ‘shroom boom rises from the ashes
Mushroom hunters descend on Montana’s fire-scorched national forests
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Forestry nominee: Rey of light or death Rey?
‘Mastermind’ of salvage logging rider would oversee U.S. Forest Service
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Tragedy re-ignites wildfire debate
Blaze in Washington’s Methow Valley kills four
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
A local heroine
We ran into Paonia’s foremost scientist near our office a few evenings ago, where she was arguing with the cash machine at First National Bank. It beeped insistently at her, until she pushed the right combination of buttons and got it to disgorge her credit card and some cash. It was a rare sighting. Dr. […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Dear Friends
Babies in the family Congratulations to Florence and Jamie Williams of Helena, Mont., on the birth of Benjamin Chesnut Williams on Thursday, July 12. Ben’s stats are 8 pounds and a shade over 20 inches long. Florence is a former HCN staffer and intern who freelances out of Helena. Her most recent HCN article was […]
Posted inJuly 30, 2001: Not in our back yard
Not in our backyard
Arizona activists find common ground on state lands
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Sovereignty: never having to say ‘may I’
Dear HCN, I want to comment on Bruce Selcraig’s article, “Tribal Links” (HCN, 6/4/01: Tribal Links). Someone – Charlie Rose, I think – asked Sherman Alexie about the morality, the vibes of Indian casinos. Like, is it a “good” thing to do? Alexie said he was more concerned with the morality of having enough to […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Rocks that look like chimneys
Dear HCN, Couldn’t help but notice the page 7 photo, “Power Site: Chimney Rock, New Mexico (Dale Schicketanz photo),” in the recent issue I received (HCN, 5/21/01). The Chimney Rock in the photo framed by those “National Scenic Powerlines,” is six miles north of New Mexico in Colorado (on the Ute Mountain Reservation lands, along […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Not all tribes like golf
Dear HCN, It isn’t often I see a story so well-written and, at the same time, so accurate as “Tribal Links” (HCN, 6/4/01: Tribal Links). Mr. Selcraig is to be complimented for managing the nearly impossible, colorful, sometimes flip characterizations and turns of phrase that are right on the money! I enjoyed reading that article […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Ed Marston’s revisionism
Dear HCN, Ed Marston wrote: “Environmentalism in the West is no longer a puny movement struggling to get the attention of the American public. For eight years, we sat at the right hand of power in the Clinton administration, working a revolution. “We had that power because the American people have bought into environmentalism and […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Greens are still a minority
Dear HCN, High Country News publisher Ed Marston reacted to Sacramento Bee reporter Tom Knudson’s unflattering “Environment, Inc.” series on the fancy finances of the professional Green movement (HCN, 6/4/01: Environmentalism meets a fierce friend) by declaring “environmentalists must be led by relatively well-paid leaders backed by professional staffs,” just like their corporate PR enemies. […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Missing: One truckload of fuel
COLORADO After a six-month search, more than 7,000 gallons of diesel fuel are still missing from a Summit County ski resort. In January, when the fuel was delivered to Copper Mountain, the driver reportedly pumped it into a water-quality monitoring well instead of an underground storage tank. Although officials were able to recover 150 gallons […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
The Latest Bounce
On June 21, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the $18.9 billion Interior Department appropriations bill. The legislation bans drilling in national monuments (HCN, 4/23/01: Monuments caught in the crosshairs), and prevents the Bush administration from reversing the 3809 hard-rock mining reform rule (HCN, 2/12/01: New mining regs slip into rulebooks). The Senate is currently […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Heard around the West
With fast-growing lawns in the West sucking down immense amounts of water, Andrew McKean of Helena, Mont., passes on two apropos comments. The first is from University of Utah political scientist Daniel McCool: “Utah doesn’t have a water problem; Utah has a Kentucky bluegrass problem.” The second comes from the side of a bus spotted […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
The greening of the Nevada Test Site
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Deep inside the Nevada Test Site, in a moonscape of craters and radioactive ruin left by nearly 1,000 nuclear bombs, Stephen Zitzer lies face down, his hands plunged into a creosote bush. Stark, white upright pipes encircle him like soldiers. Each pipe silently puffs […]