Family histories will be told at the Western Issues Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, June 23-24. Writers Kim Barnes, Patricia Nelson Limerick, Philip Deloria and Vicki Ruiz are among those talking to 200 people about living in the West. Contact the Sun Valley Center for the Arts at P.O. Box 656, Sun Valley, ID 83353 […]
Western Issues Conference
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Latin American Festival in the Mountains
More than 200 volunteers are needed at the 7th annual Latin American Festival in The Mountains, July 1 in Carbondale, Colo. The festival celebrates Latin American culture through food, arts, crafts and performances. Contact Adriana Chavira at 970/945-4060. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Latin American Festival in […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Help Hells Canyon
Managers of Hells Canyon on the Oregon-Idaho border, the deepest river-cut canyon in the world, are hoping for more direction in dealing with increasing numbers of visitors, longstanding grazing and logging and a mandate to protect the area. Until June 20, the public can have a say in the future of the canyon by commenting […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Hispanics have a new voice
A new publication in the Four Corners region, El Valle, combines Spanish and English to focus on Hispanic people. “We have a real strong Hispanic community in the Four Corners area and we’re growing,” says publisher and editor LaVerta Valdez-Johnson. “Not many hear about us because our events are not covered in local newspapers.” She […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Mining is forever
After a successful career as a hydrologist and consultant for mining companies in Montana, David Stiller decided to write a book. By looking at one mine in Montana that a prospector in 1898 named after his horse – the “Mike Horse” – Stiller says he hoped to alert people to the danger posed to Westerners […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
‘A natural calamity’
Through historical and eyewitness accounts, scientific analysis and amazing photos, Rob Carson’s Mount St. Helens: the Eruption and Recovery of a Volcano, takes us back to the blast of 20 years ago: “By the evening of May 18, Mount St. Helens was a smoking crater, hollowed-out and grey. It looked defiled, like the victim of […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Painting the prairie
Crowded Prairie: Four Painters, an exhibition at the Ucross Foundation Art Gallery in Ucross, Wyo., features 34 paintings by Karen Kitchel, Chuck Forsman, John Hull and James Lancel McElhinney. “Each (painter) has something to say that is very serious about the environmental impact of our technology on the land,” says Gordon McConnell, curator of the […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Arizona adds sunshine
Arizona’s plentiful sunshine will soon supply a small part of the state’s power. By the start of 2001, electricity providers in Arizona will be required to begin using renewable resources such as the sun, wind, biomass generators and landfill gas, for one quarter of 1 percent of total electricity used. By 2007, the state wants […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Grizzlies: going, going …
People are the greatest threat to grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, according to a 73-page Sierra Club report, Rural Residential Development Trends in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Since the Listing of the Grizzly Bear. Writer Vanessa K. Johnson says rapid growth in the counties surrounding Yellowstone chews up what’s left of the bears’ habitat. […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Shakespeare in Montana
Montanans are proud of the state’s world-class trout streams, abundant elk herds and their ongoing love affair with Shakespeare. Hang around bars, billiard halls or restaurants across the state and you can easily strike up a conversation with the locals on which of the bard’s plays and characters rings true to their heart. Shakespeare was […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
The roadless tour begins
NATION Environmental groups and the timber industry are united for once. Both oppose the Forest Service’s plan for protecting roadless areas. The plan, released May 9, comes in response to President Clinton’s promise last October to protect undesignated wilderness in national forests (HCN, 11/8/99: A new road for the public lands). The proposal would ban […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Seattle passes on greenhouse gases
WASHINGTON Politicos in Seattle, Wash., took Earth Day to heart. Mayor Paul Schell and the city council made an unprecedented pledge: to meet Seattle’s future electricity needs without increasing net greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists say these gases, some of them produced by burning fossil fuels such as coal, make the Earth’s temperature rise. “The mayor […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Mining tops toxic list
NATION For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency’s annual inventory of industrial toxic releases included hardrock mining and six other industries – and the newcomers stole the show. With the addition of these industries to the Toxics Release Inventory (HCN, 9/16/96), reported toxic releases in the United States nearly tripled, increasing from 2.6 to […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
The Wayward West
David Brower resigned from the national board of the Sierra Club on May 18, criticizing its neutral stand on U.S. immigration issues (HCN, 5/11/98: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses) and accusing the organization of a general lack of gumption. “Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration is part […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Nuclear waste needs new backyard
CALIFORNIA After more than a decade of legal challenges and nonviolent protests against a proposed nuclear-waste dump, the Save Ward Valley Coalition is closing its office. Members have gladly worked themselves out of a job. “We’ve made tremendous steps toward victory,” says Bradley Angel of Greenaction, one of the environmental groups in the coalition. US […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Can ‘property rightsniks’ stop a popular bill?
WASHINGTON, D.C. – You know folks are going to lose when they choose Helen Chenoweth-Hage to close their argument. Resplendent in a red suit, perhaps symbolic of going down in flames, the Idaho Republican stood at the well of the House and used her two minutes to … well, that wasn’t quite clear; her rhetoric […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Supreme Court upholds Babbitt’s grazing reforms
Putting livestock on public land is a privilege, not a right
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
More trouble waits in the wings
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”The West’s hottest question: How to burn what’s bound to burn.” While the 1988 fire at Yellowstone National Park stands today as an ecological success story, some scientists and forest managers say the Cerro Grande fire will be […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
The West’s hottest question: How to burn what’s bound to burn
In the wake of the Cerro Grande fire, everyone ponders prescribed burning
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Hanford executive quits in protest
Cleanup mounts to more than $15 billion