Should predators be killed to protect prey? That’s the strategy in New Mexico, where the state’s Game Commission says killing mountain lions is the best way to bolster dwindling populations of desert bighorn sheep. To save the remaining 220 sheep, most of which have been reintroduced by the state’s Fish and Game Department, the commission […]
A bighorn dilemma
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Fossil Creek will flow again
What was planned as an angry protest turned into a jubilant celebration on Nov. 18, after Arizona Public Service agreed to restore Fossil Creek, nearly dry for more than 80 years (HCN, 11/22/99). “It’s huge,” says Lisa Force of the Center for Biological Diversity, which had planned to picket APS headquarters before the decision was […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Battling over the bottom line
Congress and the Clinton administration have finally called a truce on the national budget. On Nov. 19, the House and Senate approved a $385 billion spending package, including $14.9 billion for the Interior Department. Both sides are claiming victory, but Will Hart, spokesman for Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, calls the process “frustrating.” “(We were) dealing […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
A river too warm
Three environmental groups have sued the Environmental Protection Agency over the warm wastewater that flows out of the Potlatch Corp. pulp and paper mill in Lewiston, Idaho. The Lands Council, Idaho Rivers United and the Idaho Conservation League say bull trout, salmon and steelhead can’t survive when the Snake River heats up. All the fish […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Babbitt’s wish list grows
Some western Colorado locals were nervous when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt visited the Colorado National Monument in November to announce his latest land-protection initiative. “Any time the secretary of the Interior comes to little Grand Junction, you’re apprehensive about what he’s got on his mind,” said Warren Gore, a third-generation grazing permittee. “The last thing […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
The Wayward West
Colorado River water is going to the bank. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt says a final plan allows Nevada, California and Arizona to negotiate deals for storing surplus Colorado River water. The three states will soon be able to store the water in underground aquifers for later use or even sell it for cash, which Babbitt […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Peggy Godfrey’s long, strange trip
MOFFAT, Colo. – Peggy Godfrey is driving her 1988 Oldsmobile across the San Luis Valley. She is staring straight ahead. I am sitting in the passenger seat, watching the speedometer needle sweep past 60, past 70 and hover just shy of 75. On a dirt road. At night. It’s good this valley is as flat […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Heard around the West
Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura isn’t a bit afraid of inconsistency. He bragged about visiting a Nevada brothel as a young man in his autobiography, I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed, yet a few decades later, his lawyer hints at legal action unless the brothel, the Moonlight BunnyRanch, stops using the governor’s name in its advertising. […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
An angry, compassionate memorial to a mysterious tragedy
A new book reconstructs and analyzes all that led up to the deadly firestorm on Storm King Mountain where 14 firefighters died.
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Proulx shoots holes in mythic Wyoming
You won’t find a loving couple or a child nurturing a 4-H animal in Annie Proulx’s collection of short stories set in rural Wyoming. Her briskly selling Close Range: Wyoming Stories is populated mostly by lowlifes and losers who cobble together a living in a state that is synonymous these days with limited economic opportunities. […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Coming home to the country
EKALAKA, Mont. – We called it the Mother Tree: a mature ponderosa pine on the crest of a small hill, with an acre or so of seedlings and saplings draping the hill’s leeward side, a mini-forest in the making that was the product of scores of pinecones shed by that lone adult. We drove past […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Tribe slowed down on road to showbiz
Many Indian tribes are land rich and cash poor. Not the Muckleshoots. The 1,500-member tribe lives on a tiny 3,500-acre reservation between Seattle and Mount Rainier, and last year, its casino and bingo hall brought in an estimated $48 million. For more than seven years, the tribe has been working on another moneymaker: the White […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
In this election, the West is lost
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congratulations, Westerners, you only have to live through 10 more months or so of presidential politics. Then Donald Trump, Warren Beatty, Cybil Shepard and other great intellects of our time will be off our television screens, at least masquerading as politicians, and you won’t have to think about the presidential election. What’s […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Decision may help a granddaddy keep its teeth
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”Court reads the environment its rights.” The October supreme court ruling may help clarify the granddaddy of Montana’s environmental laws, the Montana Environmental Policy Act, or MEPA, which dates back to 1971. Modeled after the National Environmental Policy […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Court reads the environment its rights
MISSOULA, Mont. – Tom France talks like a man who knows he’s made history. For three years, France, an attorney with the National Wildlife Federation, has been battling a proposed gold mine on Montana’s Blackfoot River (HCN, 12/22/97). In October, he won a ruling from the Montana Supreme Court that could mean the end of […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Uranium haunts the Colorado Plateau
CROWNPOINT, N.M. – As a trademark New Mexico sunset paints pastels over this high desert town, it’s hard to imagine that the poisonous legacy of uranium mining could be repeated here. During the 1950s and ’60s, this town of about 2,000 near the Navajo Reservation was hit by a uranium mining boom. It left Navajos […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Dear Friends
A first If you wait long enough, 15 minutes of fame comes to every person and place. Paonia, Colo.’s, came in Nov. 22, when the nation’s most highbrow magazine finally got around to featuring this small town. The recognition is long overdue. Even though The New Yorker’s founder, Harold Ross, was born just over the […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Cartoons from Elmer Sprunger
In Montana, the nonprofit Friends of the Wild Swan is ringing in the new year with a calendar of favorite cartoons from Elmer Sprunger (see page 6), the man who can make bears talk. It’s $10 from Friends of the Wild Swan, P.O. Box 5103, Swan Lake, MT 59911. This article appeared in the print […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Great Salt Lake Issues Forum
The third Great Salt Lake Issues Forum will spotlight selected watershed programs within the state and around the country, including Idaho’s Salmon/Lemhi Resource Area. The goal is to use these examples to devise a collaborative restoration and protection program for Great Salt Lake. The Feb. 25-26 forum is presented by Friends of Great Salt Lake. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Tailings and mine waste
Colorado State University is hosting a conference on tailings and mine waste Jan. 23-26, 2000, for members of the mining community and other interest groups concerned with mine waste management. Mining, tailings management, geohydrology, geochemistry and other related topics will be covered in focused sessions. For information, contact Linda Hinshaw, Department of Civil Engineering, Colorado […]