ARIZONA, COLORADO It seemed obvious. The media love controversy, and in Arizona and Colorado, growth-control initiatives on the Nov. 7 ballot have been extremely controversial (HCN, 10/23/00: Arizona’s 202 takes aim at sprawl). So of course the public-minded, public-broadcast stations would want to air Subdivide and Conquer, a film about sprawl. Yet the film has […]
Sprawl will be televised
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Timber counties get new money
NATION Since 1908, counties with national forests have received 25 percent of Forest Service timber receipts to pay for schools and roads. In recent years, rural communities have struggled financially as logging has declined (HCN, 12/20/99: Counties grab for control of national forests). Now, after several years and six legislative versions, President Clinton is expected […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Don’t step on a bomb
COLORADO During World War II, up to 17,000 soldiers, including the famed ski troopers of the 10th Mountain Division, trained at Camp Hale near the town of Leadville, Colo. The men learned to ski, climb rocks and bivouac in 30-below weather. David Brower, who wrote the division’s mountaineering manual, was there, as were Vail visionary […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
On the trail
In July, Arizona’s growth-control initiative looked unstoppable: A poll by KUET, the Phoenix public television station, showed Proposition 202 winning, 68 percent to 17 percent. But the opposition, heavily supported by the development industry, has used its $4.1 million in contributions to mount a no-holds-barred media campaign (HCN, 10/23/00: Arizona’s 202 takes aim at sprawl). […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
The latest bounce
For more than four months, the Bureau of Land Management has threatened to fine, and impound the cattle of, three ranchers who refused to remove their cattle from the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument in southern Utah (HCN, 9/25/00: Ranchers test an agency’s image). Now, the agency has followed through: Late last month, the BLM impounded the […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
News battle emerges in Utah
UTAH Thanks to a petition to higher-ups from editorial staffers at the Salt Lake Tribune, a news story involving the paper itself reached the light of day. In mid-October, the Wall Street Journal and other national newspapers picked up details of a struggle between the Tribune, an independent daily with about 135,000 readers, and the […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
A hunter for gun control
In my family, we talk about hunting like it’s religion. My mom bemoans the fact that none of us have the kind of faith in God that “seems to hold other families together,” but at least, she sighs, there’s Hunting. Opening day’s the occasion we all come home for, more than Thanksgiving or Easter, more […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Outlaws on an upscale road
When I moved to Teton County, Wyo., two decades ago, I lived in a sagging, second-hand pup tent for the summer. The tipi I moved into that winter felt palatial by comparison. Almost everyone I knew then lived in wall tents, tipis, yurts, or cabins with no plumbing. Even when the temperature fell past 30 […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Heard around the West
Is this a tale for Ripley’s Believe It or Not? A moose in Whitefish, Mont., threw itself at a car driven by a woman who loves moose so much her license plates read moosie1 and moosie2. The suicidal moose, probably a victim of raging hormones during the rutting season, “really shook up the driver,” reports […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Colorado’s Coal Basin starts a new life
Students and the state help recover aformer miningtract
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Idaho resorts near ‘wild’ river must go
Judge says the Forest Servicemisinterpreted thelaw
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
CARA’s not quite the girl she used to be
WASHINGTON, D.C. – When we last left Cara, our maiden in perpetual distress, she had escaped from the railroad tracks to which she had been tied by evil members of the House of Representatives, who hoped that an onrushing freight train or mass indifference would do her in. Not Cara, a game kid if ever […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Will a watched refuge ever revive?
Buenos Aires managers see slow progress, but ranchers are champing at the bit
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Congress moves on local proposals
Babbitt’s ‘monument tour’ led to some legislative solutions
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Dear Friends
A forest history award On March 29, 1999, High Country News published Lynne Bama‘s story about public-land exchanges and the turn-of-the-century politics that led to checkerboarded lands in the West. Her story vividly outlined how private land came to dot public lands, and how attempts by federal agencies to consolidate their holdings led to controversy […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
‘Re-inhabitation’ revisited
The new invasion of the rural Northwest
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Learning from John Sawhill
Dear HCN, Fine piece on the late John Sawhill by Jon Margolis (HCN, 9/11/00: Remembering an establishment revolutionary). Lest anyone forget, he was one helluva public servant, and that rare breed, a GOP conservationist. As a Newsweek Washington correspondent, I covered him in the Nixon and Ford administrations during which he put the first ax […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Meth story a wake-up call
Dear HCN, Thanks for that excellent article and wake-up call about the “meth invasion” by Stephen Lyons. As a retired detective (NYPD), I know the value of informing the public about the drug perils in their midst, even in the most, so-called, unlikely places. An alerted public could well be a major factor in dealing […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Thanks for the methane issue
Dear HCN, Thanks for your recent issue on coalbed methane. It was wonderful to see you treat an issue that is widespread, complex, and far from environmentally benign, despite methane being labeled a “green” fuel. I have to admit to being a little disappointed that you didn’t say anything about the Raton Basin here in […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Churches greening none too soon
Dear HCN, Thanks to HCN and Jim Robbins for the fine piece on the Columbia River Pastoral Letter Project (“Holy Water,” HCN, 9/11/00: Holy Water). The pastoral letter is a good example of what some have called the “greening” of the Christian Church. Other efforts to make Christianity more “earth friendly” are under way among […]