NEW MEXICO The largest irrigation district on the Rio Grande has received some bone-shaking news: The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, formerly thought to be an arm of the state, is a federal agency. In 1951, the Bureau of Reclamation bailed out the nearly bankrupt district, spending millions to renovate dams and irrigation ditches. At […]
Water district has identity crisis
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Buddhist temple hits a snag
CALIFORNIA While a Buddhist temple may be a place of tranquility, plans for a new retreat center in a canyon have environmentalists fuming and suing. The controversy began after San Bernardino County unanimously approved a 1998 proposal by Ling Yen Temple Inc. to build a 10-building retreat and a 600-car parking lot. Now, a Pasadena-based […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Government writes wolf success story
NATION The federal government has declared its wolf recovery program a success. With wolf numbers at nearly 3,500 today – up from practically zero in the 1950s – the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed on July 11 to downlist the gray wolf from “endangered” to “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in most of […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
The Wayward West
The Clinton administration has weighed in on the politically charged dam-breaching debate in the Northwest – and some say it’s bad news for endangered salmon (HCN, 12/20/99: Unleashing the Snake). On July 19, George Frampton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, announced Clinton will delay demolishing the four Snake River dams for five to […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Colorado blazes fuel forest restoration efforts
Front Range communities work to protect their water supply from post-fire soil erosion
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Up in smoke: Hanford fire releases plutonium
Activists worried about airborne ash
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
The snail that stands like a dam
Grand Canyon restoration hinges on the recovery of a tiny, talented mollusk
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Kicking and screaming in Nevada
The July 4 Shovel Brigade rally was a yawner, but protesters may still get what they want
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
A party for the people
Late on the afternoon of July 14, about three dozen people gathered at a Salt Lake City park to celebrate the 30th anniversary of an unusual family reunion. Dubbed the Bastille Family Reunion, this party got its start after the People’s Park incident in Berkeley, Calif., in 1969, when cities around the country banned large […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Dear Friends
Life in a petri dish July in Paonia is time for cherries, apricots and early morning irrigation. It’s time to crank up the swamp coolers and charge down Grand Avenue to jump into what’s left of the North Fork of the Gunnison River. But most of all, it’s the season for visiting far-flung friends and […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Rural Green: A new shade of activism
Ed Marston interviews Steve Hinchman, former HCN staffer and director of the Western Slope Environmental Resource Council, about the different kind of environmental activism and consensus-building needed in rural Western communities.
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Mining out the middleman
In Montana, locals and industry bypass agencies and forge a new road
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Out of the darkness
A Western Colorado community meets a coal boom halfway
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Optimism for Nevada’s weedy wasteland
Dear HCN, I’ve been working with reclamation in the Great Basin for 17 years and personally know the learned gentlemen interviewed by Jon Christensen. Your article left me feeling like all our efforts over the years (HCN, 5/22/00: Save Our Sagebrush) have little show. I agree that the crested wheat plantations are more like museums […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Why does Congress starve public lands?
Dear HCN, Diane Pietrasanta says that her wilderness fee program in the Sierra should generate enough revenue to “pay five or six seasonal rangers where there would have been none” (HCN, 2/14/00: Land of the fee). I think the real issue is not “should we charge fees?” or “how much should we charge?” but rather […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Plum Creek is here to stay
Dear HCN, In response to the lead article, “After the fall” by Steve Thompson, and Ed Marston’s column (HCN, 5/8/00), here is Plum Creek’s perspective. We at Plum Creek disagree with the premise of both the column and the article that sets up an artificial conflict between small mills and large forest products firms such […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Idaho labs blow another stack
IDAHO Last winter, when Jackson Hole, Wyo., residents sued the Department of Energy to stop a nuclear waste incinerator planned for Idaho, it was just the tip of the smokestack (HCN, 4/10/00: Incinerator plans go up in smoke). In early June, two conservation groups, Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free and Idaho’s Environmental Defense Institute, notified the […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Caterpillar concoction causes concern
OREGON, WASHINGTON The U.S. Forest Service is using ground-up caterpillars and another biological insecticide to target an infestation of tussock moths on national forests in the Pacific Northwest. In a widespread outbreak in the 1970s, the moths defoliated trees across 700,000 acres in Oregon and Washington. The agency hopes that the caterpillar concoction, which carries […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
‘The vampires are in charge of the blood bank’
Note: this article is a sidebar to the news story “Utah’s river kid takes on the water buffaloes.” Zachary Frankel, a native of Salt Lake City, is the executive director of the Utah Rivers Council. Zachary Frankel: “I lived in Washington state and studied river ecology. I went diving in rivers and realized how gorgeous […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
‘We haven’t got anything back’
Note: this article is a sidebar to the news story “Utah’s river kid takes on the water buffaloes.” Roscoe (Ross) Garrett, a lifelong resident of Nephi, Utah, has served on the board of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District for more than 35 years. Ross Garrett: “This community settled in 1852. About 15 years ago […]