Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces this issue’s feature story, “Interior view,” an interview with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. In the rough-and-tumble world of American politics, you can be a hero one day, a bum the next. Few know this better than Bruce Babbitt. Eight years ago, when the U.S. Senate confirmed Babbitt as secretary […]
Mr. Babbitt’s wild ride
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Let’s ban second homes
Dear HCN, Not long ago, I was eating pancakes in a small diner/grocery in Clark, Colo., just 25 miles north of Steamboat Springs. My waitress was 60-something, and I soon found that she and her husband owned a farm outside of Clark. “It’s been part of the family since the Homestead Act,” she explained. By […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
‘Burma Shave’ rhymes inspire
Dear HCN, I just received your latest edition of HCN and couldn’t get the Burma Shave lines out of my head. I think bringing information like this up about our checkered history is important (HCN, 10/23/00: Dear Friends). A quick, easy-to-read sign is an innovative way to get the information across. The hard-hitting reporting that […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
More than advertising
Dear HCN, The “Analysis” by Tony Davis regarding the failure of Arizona’s anti-growth Proposition 202 in the last election misses an important part of the situation in southern Arizona and, I suspect, elsewhere as well (HCN, 11/20/00: In Arizona’s growth fight, advertising defined reality). Davis attributes the failure to an advertising blitz by the pro-growth […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Salmon for barbecue hardly the issue
Dear HCN, Logger Kirkmire’s letter in your Dec. 4 edition requires several responses. 1) The people he claims are outraged about the killing of excess hatchery salmon need to study up on their biology and ecology. Any watershed has a limited capacity for spawning and rearing of salmon. To introduce more spawning adults into a […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Dobb’s argument is troubling
Dear HCN, Edwin Dobb (HCN, 12/18/00: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?) argues that we must accept our alienation from nature and, out of humane compassion, take endangered species into our adopting hands. His philosophy of “natural representation,” while perhaps inspiring some individuals to protect wildlife, would be disastrous for the conservation […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Greens failed grassroots miserably
Dear HCN, I’m sure environmentalists are ready to declare the Sagebrush Rebellion over now that People for the USA is closing its doors (HCN, 12/18/00: People for the USA! disbands). Sierra Clubber Bruce Hamilton couldn’t resist one last distortion, telling HCN readers that PFUSA went about “buying rural representatives.” Hamilton also pointed out that “Corporate […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Tagging a protest
Opponents of a new pass to visit the Red Rock area of Coconino National Forest near Sedona, Ariz., are using a rearview mirror tag to claim exemption from fees. The Forest Service says its fee demonstration program is needed to restore and enhance a scenic treasure, but members of the AZ NoFee Coalition fear “the […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Beyond the white noise
The environment doesn’t begin as you leave the city – workplaces and neighborhoods are part of it, too. But battles to protect these places, especially those belonging to minority groups, have not often been visible to the public. The 2000 Directory of People of Color Environmental Groups brings these community fights to life, listing the […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
X-rated on the rocks
“I am glad I have seen yournakedness;it is beautiful;it will rain from now on.” — Talashimtiwa Hopi Indian from Oraibi, 1920from The Serpent and the Sacred Fire: Fertility Images in Southwest Rock Art The record on rock left by the Southwest’s early people is mostly mystifying. What do those galaxy-like clusters really represent? What are […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Agency will try to track trails
The Bureau of Land Management has a new nationwide strategy for off-highway vehicle management. The plan, released Jan. 19, calls for local environmental analyses of vehicle impacts, saying that some endangered species habitat may need further protection from OHV use. It also broadens BLM’s definition of off-highway vehicles, which will now include snowmobiles, personal watercraft, […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
A slow comeback for Mexican wolves
Mexican gray wolves continue to die along the Arizona-New Mexico line. In December, U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials found a dead wolf outside of Reserve, N.M. It was the 21st Mexican gray wolf to die or disappear since the agency first released captive animals into the Apache National Forest in 1998 (HCN, 12/21/98: Wolf killers […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Swift fox may lose the race
The last days of the Clinton administration haven’t all been rosy for environmentalists. In early January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service dropped the swift fox as a candidate for endangered species listing. Environmentalists petitioned the federal government eight years ago to protect the housecat-sized canine under the Endangered Species Act. But the Swift Fox […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Park Service bans Jet Skis
A recent settlement between the National Park Service and Bluewater Network, a San Francisco-based conservation group, may eliminate personal watercraft from the entire park system by 2002. Last March, the National Park Service banned Jet Skis from all but 21 of its units. The watercraft are now restricted to 11 national recreation areas – including […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Landowners could get gas relief
For years, landowners in Colorado have complained that the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, charged with regulating methane gas development, is biased towards industry (HCN, 9/25/00: Colliding forces: Has Colorado’s oil and gas industry met its match?). Now, four bills currently in the state Legislature promise to give landowners more rights. Greg Walcher, the head […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Monumental changes
With only three days left before George W. Bush would become president, the Clinton administration pressed forward with its land-protection plans and created seven new national monuments. The Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona is the largest of the pack, encompassing over 486,000 acres of desert northeast of Organ Pipe National Monument. The area will […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
The latest bounce
New rules released in early January by the National Marine Fisheries Service signal a new phase in the salmon recovery effort. It is now a crime to harm or kill threatened salmon along the West Coast (HCN, 12/20/99: Unleashing the Snake). That means land users such as farmers and developers could be sued by anyone […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
From hardware to software
How the wilderness movement got its start
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Heard around the West
“One of the reasons environmental protection is so hard is that it is so embarrassing,” says Oliver Houck, a law professor at Tulane Law School in Louisiana. It’s one thing to say you got ticketed for speeding, but another to confess “that you are using the Boise River as a sewer,” which explains why the […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Ski area arms race dirties the water
Colorado critics say snowmaking should not be allowed