Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “A tired stream gains new steam.” Relicensing of a hydroelectric project begins at least two years before the old license expires. After an application is filed, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gives public notice, and any member […]
Figuring out FERC
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
A tired stream gains new steam
STRAWBERRY, Ariz. – Below Arizona’s Mogollon Rim, Fossil Springs bubbles from the ground to water a dry land. From the springs, Fossil Creek used to flow almost 15 miles through scrubby mesquite and pinon trees before it emptied into the Verde River. But for almost a century, a dam built a quarter-mile from the springs […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Western environmentalists go global
SEATTLE, Wash. – When the five-day World Trade Organization conference begins here on Nov. 30, as many as 50,000 protesters are expected to hit the streets with marches and street theater, demanding environmental, labor, safety and human-rights protections in global trade rules. The activists, including local and national union activists and representatives from many Western […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Nevadans drive out forest supervisor
RENO, Nev. – After enduring a year and a half of what she calls Nevada’s “fed bashing,” Gloria Flora couldn’t take it anymore. The supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the largest national forest in the lower 48 states, submitted her resignation Nov. 8. But Flora didn’t go quietly. Instead, she used her resignation to […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Dear Friends
Hail to a hiker Congratulations to an indomitable woman named Gudy Gaskill, who decided 25 years ago that volunteers could – and would – build a 470-mile trail around Colorado’s mountaintops. There was help from then-Gov. Richard Lamm and the Forest Service, but what really drew people from ages 14 to 80 was Gudy herself […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
In Washington, the emperor is on Babbitt’s side
Washington, D.C. – In the combat arena to which your nation’s government has degenerated, belligerents armed with rhetorical excess and bilious discourtesy hurl their weapons at each other hoping to inflict humiliation, if not political death. In the center ring of this civic (but uncivil) Forum, the big-name gladiators fight over the federal budget and […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Ninety years of the Antiquities Act
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. June 1906 Congress passes the Antiquities Act. It gives the president power to “declare by public proclamation … objects of historic and scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the government of the United States to be […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Is the Grand Staircase-Escalante a model monument?
Note: a sidebar article, “Ninety years of the Antiquities Act,” accompanies this feature story. Three years ago, Jerry Meredith was pretty sure he had landed one of the toughest jobs in the federal government. The 51-year-old middle manager for the Bureau of Land Management had just been tagged to oversee the brand-new Grand Staircase-Escalante National […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
The secretary’s must-do list for Western lands
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s Western road tour didn’t finish at Steens Mountain; in fact, no one seems quite sure where it will end. In addition to the Arizona Strip and the Missouri River Breaks, several other Bureau of Land Management sites could gain greater […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
‘Multiple use is still the best concept’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Stacy Davies is the ranch manager of the Roaring Springs Ranch in the Catlow Valley, on the west side of Steens Mountain. Owned by the Bob Sanders family for the last seven years, it is the largest ranch on Steens Mountain, with 146,000 acres […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
‘I don’t want to run a different business’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Fred Otley is a fourth-generation rancher on Steens Mountain in the Kiger Creek and Kiger Gorge area. He is the coordinator of Friends of Steens Mountain, a group of local citizens and ranchers, and is a “private landowner liaison” to the Resource Advisory Council. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
‘The more protection … the better’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bill Marlett is the executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association. He has filed a number of appeals and a lawsuit against the BLM, all asserting his group’s opposition to grazing on Steens Mountain. “I told (Babbitt) point-blank that we want a date-certain […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
‘I see lawsuits as a last resort’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Jill Workman is a Portland-based volunteer for the Sierra Club. She believes that livestock grazing should continue on Steens Mountain. “I see lawsuits as a last resort. I’d rather try to work with people. I personally don’t think you can rule those people out. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
‘Environmentalists will win’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Andy Kerr is a veteran Oregon environmentalist who represents The Wilderness Society on the Steens issue. He is pushing for an end to livestock grazing on Steens Mountain. “The (Southeast Oregon Resource Advisory Council) is the wrong entity to cut a deal. It has […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Babbitt looks for support on his home turf
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Shivwits Plateau wasn’t on environmentalists’ radar screen a year ago. Better known as the Arizona Strip, the Shivwits lies in the extreme northwestern corner of Arizona. Cut off from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, it […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
One proposal nearly runs aground
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Last spring, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt got to have some fun. He took a raft trip on Montana’s Missouri River Breaks accompanied by author and filmmaker Dayton Duncan and historian Stephen Ambrose, author of Undaunted Courage, a recent and highly popular telling of the […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Go tell it on the mountain
FRENCHGLEN, Ore. – Atop 9,600-foot Steens Mountain, a brisk northwest wind races up the spectacular U-shaped canyon of Little Blitzen Creek at dawn. Howling over the top of golden aspen trees in the canyon below, the wind rips up-canyon to a steep alpine bowl at the top of the draw, and – poof! – like […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Mining may need some brakes
Outdated federal mining regulations cause environmental disasters, says the Mineral Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Its 32-page report, Six Mines, Six Mishaps: Six Case Studies of What’s Wrong With Federal and State Hardrock Mining Regulations and Recommendations for Reform, describes a wide range of mining sites that have “slipped through the loopholes of regulations,” says […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Wising up to whirling disease
Scientists are considering new management strategies for whirling disease, which has been attacking fish in the West since the early 1990s. The disease has spread from one Western river to the next, eluding attempts at a cure and draining funds from state game and fish department budgets. Trout get the disease by eating worms infected […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Keeping Glacier Park intact
Four years of work, months of public review and a $1.5 million investment have paid off for Glacier National Park planners. Last summer, the Park Service signed the General Management Plan that will guide Glacier’s resource management for the next few decades. Project leader Mary Riddle says the plan reflects people’s desire to keep the […]