Dear HCN, Bob Skaggs and so many others miss the point when they argue that immigrants only take low-paying jobs that “no one else wants” (HCN, 11/20/00). Corine Flores is right. We have little hope of advancing the earnings potential of this nation’s poor or minorities, or of protecting the environment, as long as immigration […]
Why immigration hurts
Gun controllers need to think again
Dear HCN, I am glad that Ali Macalady and her family are devoted to hunting. I share with her the belief that “there is something important about harvesting my own food,” and a love of early mornings spent waiting for game. But it is disappointing to read that an outdoorswoman such as Macalady considers it […]
Let’s organize!
Dear HCN, I was pleased to see the article on “Hunters for Gun Control” (HCN, 11/6/00). I am interested in building a coalition of groups in Montana (and elsewhere) that can effectively challenge the perception that all or most hunters and sportsmen accept the NRA line. Ralph StoneVista, Montana This article appeared in the print […]
This hunter is for freedom
Dear HCN, As a hunter, I find opinions like those of Ali Macalady nauseating (HCN, 11/6/00). “Hunters for Gun Control?” I wonder if she’s not a “plant,” a leftist radical posing as a hunter. If she’s really a hunter, she should be aware that the gun-grabbers will never be satisfied with banning handguns and semi-automatic […]
Little town shows big heart in the face ofgrowth
CALIFORNIA Silicon Valley has pumped $50 million into California open space preservation since 1998. But this fall, on California’s central coast, residents of the small town of Cambria showed that sheer will also goes a long way in the fight against development. Hong Kong investors had plans to put over 250 homes on 417 seaside […]
Students’ snowmobiles show up industry
WYOMING Last winter, in about six months, university students designed a cleaner snowmobile – a feat the four major snowmobile manufacturers haven’t been able to accomplish in 10 years, says Teton County Commissioner Bill Paddleford. Paddleford co-founded the Clean Snowmobile Challenge, held in Jackson, Wyo., to find alternatives to two-stroke engines that emit more than […]
Ombudsman could be town’s ticket
MONTANA Victims of a 1996 train derailment that spilled 133,000 pounds of chemicals near Alberton, Mont., may finally get some help. Though Montana Rail Link and the Environmental Protection Agency cleaned up a 30-acre area after the spill, many residents continue to complain of lingering pollution and illness. But neither the company nor the regional […]
Is a gold mine’s discharge illegal?
COLORADO The Cripple Creek & Victor Mine near Victor can claim two superlatives: It is Colorado’s largest open-pit gold mine, and, according to the EPA, it’s also the state’s biggest chemical polluter of water. Because Colorado has failed to rein in the mine, say two national environmental groups, they are threatening to sue the mine […]
Mine all dressed up with nowhere to go
ARIZONA The future of a controversial mine in southern Arizona now may be at the mercy of the copper market. The proposed Carlota copper mine, for four years a target of local environmental groups because of its threat to nearby Pinto Creek (HCN, 3/17/97), now has all the permits it needs to open, but its […]
Counties want a park road opened
UTAH An unpaved road to spectacular sandstone Angel Arch in Canyonlands National Park has become another battleground in the continuing war between rural county commissioners and the federal government. The Park Service restricted motorized travel along the primitive Salt Creek Road in 1995, reducing the number of vehicles per day from 70 to 20. Since […]
Los Alamos piles on more waste
NEW MEXICO With the stockpile of radioactive waste set to expand at Los Alamos National Laboratory, local watchdog groups fear that temporary storage might turn out to be forever. Fifteen years ago, Congress made the Department of Energy responsible for taking low-level radioactive waste from America’s private industries and government programs. But DOE has been […]
The latest bounce
An estimated 2,000 people marched in Seattle to commemorate the Nov. 30 anniversary of the World Trade Organization protests (HCN, 12/20/99: WTO limps home from Seattle). The peaceful event turned ugly late in the evening, when about 50 people clashed with police; the confrontation eventually resulted in 140 arrests. Most of those arrested were charged […]
Park sues notorious developer
COLORADO The National Park Service says it won’t buckle under to Tom Chapman, the Colorado developer who has a history of marketing luxury homes on private inholdings within the state’s wilderness areas and forests (HCN, 7/5/99: Wilderness developer Tom Chapman is back). Officials at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park near Montrose, Colo., […]
EPA reins in ranchers
OREGON For years, a bureaucratic gap in Oregon law has allowed some ranchers to violate the Clean Water Act by allowing their cows’ manure to seep into rivers. Now, the Environmental Protection Agency is cracking down. So far, the EPA has fined 10 Oregon ranchers – some as much as $50,000 – while also requiring […]
Heard around the West
Oh, to be a stray in San Francisco, where a software billionaire’s gift has made animal homelessness a Cinderella experience. Once picked up from the streets, cats, for example, move to a loft where they can choose to watch mice run on television or loll on top of a six-foot climbing tree. Piped-in air to […]
Cure or curse?
As Chronic Wasting Disease appears again, questions arise about the velvet antler trade
Troubled harvest
Washington’s fruit industry is a hotbed of federal immigration policy gone wrong
Feds fight chaos in a desert playground
ORVs are banned from more than half of California’s Algodones Dunes
When two traditions collide
Controversy surrounds a tribe’s request to gather eagles in a national monument
People for the USA! disbands
The wise-use movement’s shrillest voice goes silent, but the spirit lives on
