ARIZONA, NEVADA New rules for sightseeing flights will help restore some tranquility for boaters in the Grand Canyon, but the rancorous debate over where airplanes and helicopters are allowed shows no signs of quieting down (HCN, 1/20/97: It will be noise as usual in Grand Canyon). Last year, after 13 years of deliberation, the Federal […]
Debate roars over quiet canyon
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Microwaveable wilderness
CALIFORNIA The infrastructure of the information age is still firmly rooted on the ground – and when that ground is designated wilderness, things can get a little complicated. In Death Valley National Park, a microwave repeater tower, used to relay telephone calls across the rugged terrain, is under scrutiny by environmental groups. The 35-foot high […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
The latest bounce
A federal judge in Idaho has ordered the state to stop killing badgers, ravens and coyotes. Last February, in an attempt to increase numbers of declining sage grouse, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission authorized Wildlife Services to kill the bird’s predators (HCN, 2/26/01: Idaho predators are under the gun). The court ruling is the […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Roadless rule hits the skids
The mood was unusually agreeable at a recent federal court hearing on the Clinton administration’s roadless area conservation rule for national forest lands. In Boise, Idaho, on March 30, Judge Edward Lodge heard arguments against the rule from the State of Idaho, timber company Boise Cascade, and other plaintiffs. Then he turned to the government […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Heard around the West
“WOW! Did I miss something?” asks Patrice Mason in her letter to the Moab, Utah, Times-Independent. Then she jumped into the fray: “I have a vagina. Half of the people in Moab have vaginas. And let us not forget that each and every one of us passed through one on the way into the world. […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Plan protects foresters, not fish
Biologists say Washington salmon plan based on politics
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Company leaves victims in its dust
Facing a blizzard of lawsuits, W.R. Grace & Co. declares bankruptcy
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Monument status could wreck ruins
BLM officials need money to manage masses
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Monuments caught in the crosshairs
Will Clinton’s designations crumble under Republican attacks?
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
An unabashed moralist bows out
CARSON NATIONAL FOREST, N.M. – Sam Hitt wraps his arms around a towering yellow pine. He sniffs the bark and invites me to take a turn. Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice assail my sinuses. “People tease me about being a tree hugger. I never hugged a tree, so I thought I’d get into it,” says the founder […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
Dear friends
Relentless Over the years, High Country News has been blessed with many friends and supporters. Surely one of the most faithful is Connie Harvey. On more than one occasion, the longtime resident of Aspen, Colo., has made timely contributions that have kept the paper going or seeded a new endeavor, such as our Writers on […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
The Big Blowup
The Great Fires shaped a century of fire policy
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
After the fires, Part I
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Reforming an agency such as the Forest Service is like pushing an old truck up a hill. It’s grunt work, and unless you have a lot of friends, you won’t get anywhere. But every once in a long while, there’s a shift. A moment […]
Posted inApril 23, 2001: The Big Blowup
An environmentalist in the heart of cowboy culture
ELKO, Nev. — It’s not often that the prospect of a humanities lecture stirs protest. But that’s what happened when former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall was invited to give the annual lecture at the 17th annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering. The Elko gathering has become the state’s premier folklore event, and it brings about 8,000 people […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
The real deal vs. the stolen image
Dear HCN, I appreciated the Hotline pointing out that Utah is slaughtering the mascot of the SLC Olympic games (HCN, 3/12/01: State to coyote hunters: Let the games begin). Each time I see the California flag, I imagine (that’s all I can do, given limited funds) full-page ads in the L.A., San Francisco and Sacramento […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
The border’s gut-wrenching water problems
Dear HCN, Megan Lardner’s story, “Divided waters” (HCN, 3/12/01: Divided waters), provoked a strong, visceral response in me. She certainly has the ability to observe and to describe what she sees. What she saw stirred my gut. To have a metropolitan border area of over 2 million persons, some of whom have to depend on […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
What’s wrong with ‘sustainable’ forestry?
Dear HCN, In Mike Stark’s article, “Will logging save the spotted owl” (HCN, 3/12/01: Will logging save the spotted owl?), he quotes Joe Keating, federal forest coordinator for the Sierra Club, “All in all, it’s just a very bad plan.” Later Keating expands, “The real reason (for this plan) is to have a sustainable forestry […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
The West, warts and all
Dear HCN, Allen Best (“The mythic West and the billionaire,” HCN, 2/26/01: The mythic West and the billionaire) is right on target. Artists who’ve romanticized the West, often with corporate subsidies, have tended to blind us to the dark side of our history. The paintings are beautiful but isn’t art, and all the arts, supposed […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
Babbit followed ‘the tyranny of the majority’
Dear HCN, I would like to respond to Glenn Koepke’s letter, “Don’t glorify Babbitt” (HCN, 3/12/01: Don’t glorify Babbitt). Mr. Koepke presents his arguments with enviable skill, and articulates what may be the majority position in the West regarding public-lands management – that the lands exist to be utilized in traditional ways, to produce timber, […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
Mystery on the Colorado
Glen and Bessie Hyde floated the Green and Colorado rivers on their honeymoon in 1928. Aboard a two-ton sweep scow made from scrounged wood, and with a little experience gleaned from rivers in Idaho, the newlyweds made their way through Labyrinth, Stillwater, Cataract and Glen canyons before facing the awesome power of the Colorado in […]