A federal judge has clamped down on permits for new subdivisions, roads, power lines, shopping malls, and other projects in the habitat of the endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl in and around Tucson. Many of Tucson’s suburbs continued to approve subdivisions after the pygmy-owl was listed in 1997, despite a county-wide effort to preserve the owl’s […]
Score one for the owl
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Heard around the West
Homes on the range: photos by High Country News readers This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Heard around the West.
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
ORVs run wild and free in Utah
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Buffed-up and bristling with rock-banging, wall-climbing extras, the 1999 Grand Cherokee Jeep Laredo with all the bells and winches will set you back a cool $34,000. And you may need the power of a Grand Cherokee to conquer the Moab, Utah, trail dubbed the […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
One forest takes on roads
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. On the Clearwater National Forest in north-central Idaho, a group of hikers follows a Forest Service tour guide along a creek not far from where Lewis and Clark crossed the Bitterroot Mountains. Under clear August skies, they discover a different sort of pioneering effort. […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
A convert to conservation
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Shawn Regnerus is a native Montanan, a hunter, angler, hiker and a former lover of dirt bikes. Regnerus, 30, grew up in rural Amsterdam, near Bozeman, where his father worked as a high school teacher. He later studied law at the University of Montana […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
The Forest Service sets off into uncharted territory
TARGHEE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho – Jim Gerber is staring me in the eye and he doesn’t look happy. He’s tall and lean, wears his gray hair clipped in a buzz cut, and he’s angry. The U.S. Forest Service has dug itself into a hole, he says, and he’s hell-bent on digging the agency out, and […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
On the Missouri, the middle grounds gets soggy
Only a decade ago, animosity between states in the Missouri River’s upper and lower basins was out of control. If the states weren’t suing each other over Missouri River flows, they were attacking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for that agency’s management of the river system. South Dakota Gov. William Janklow grumbled that the […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Floyd brings on a hurricane of hog waste
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”Can a hog farm bring home the bacon?“ Hurricane Floyd vividly demonstrated the downside to factory farming. Televised images of bloated hog and poultry carcasses and vivid accounts of a floating soup of agricultural, human and industrial contamination […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Can a hog farm bring home the bacon?
MELLETTE COUNTY, S.D. – In this vast, largely empty sea of rolling prairie grass, where little is shiny and new, the sun mirroring off the galvanized silver roof panels of 24 enormous, brand-new hog barns is a remarkable sight. It’s the start of the largest-ever development on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. North Dakota-based Bell Farms […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Judge topples small timber sales
HOTCHKISS, Colo. – Allen Todd has been in the timber business on Colorado’s Western Slope for about a quarter of a century, and his small but tidy custom sawmill outside the town of Hotchkiss reflects his years of experience. Looking like oversized games of Jenga, neat towers of square timbers, which will soon reinforce shafts […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Dear Friends
Signed, sealed and (maybe) delivered The staff at High Country News does the trivial part of producing a newspaper: We contact writers and photographers, we edit, we lay out, we haul the papers back from the printer, we slap on 21,000-plus address labels, and then we truck the ton or so of forest product over […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
A new road for the public lands
Note: this front-page essay introduces this issue’s feature story. In early October, President Clinton visited the Washington and Jefferson National Forest. From that green pulpit, he asked us to tell him how to manage 40 million to 60 million acres of roadless national forest land: Do we want the clean water they produce, the wildlife […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
How to keep hummers happy
Dear HCN, The story about the remarkable concentrations of migrating hummingbirds at Jesse Hendrix’s home outside Nogales, Ariz., has piqued a great deal of interest in attracting and feeding these living jewels (Heard around the West, HCN, 9/13/99). The Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory offers the following recommendations for making hummingbirds feel at home in your […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
The Right rules the rural West
Dear HCN, The recent debate between Ed Marston and Thomas Power (HCN, 8/2/99) over low wages and living standards touches on one of the biggest issues facing the West today: i.e., Why has the rural West become so reactionary, and what can be done about it? My wife and I recently cancelled our plans to […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Three cheers for cities
Dear HCN, While Thomas Powers’ analysis of the economic value of the Western environment is powerful and persuasive, I wish he could make his point without denigrating other places (HCN, 8/2/99). Those of us who live in large urban areas – New York City, for example – are well aware of the negatives Power lists: […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
River Network
Merged: River Network from Portland, Ore., and River Watch Network of Montpelier, Vt., on Oct. 1. The new group will keep the name River Network and headquarters in Portland, with field offices in Montpelier, Vt., Helena, Mont., and Washington, D.C. Over 800 local partner groups participate in the network. Contact the group at 800/423-6747 or […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Volunteer work in the nation’s parks
Student Conservation Association interns will soon have more than pretty pictures and increased conservation acumen to show for their volunteer work in the nation’s parks, refuges and forests. Starting in 2000, the group’s resource assistants will also receive educational awards, ranging from $1,200 to $4,000, depending on program length. The money is allocated through the […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Conference for the Animals
Animal Protection of New Mexico Inc. will host its 1999 Conference for the Animals Nov. 5-7 in Albuquerque. The gathering’s aim is to strengthen animal-activist networks and educate the public about domestic and wild animals. Speakers include Alan Green, author of Animal Underworld, and Steven M. Wise, animal rights attorney. Contact APNM at 505/265-2322 or […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
What should every Westerner know
The Center of the American West wants to know. What should every Westerner know, and, how does someone become a Westerner? If you have strong opinions and hanker for a good discussion or debate, log on to the Center’s Web site at http://www.centerwest.org/westerner, or send a postcard to the University of Colorado-based Center of the […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Water aficionados
The Idaho Water Resources Research Institute holds monthly video-link seminars with water aficionados in Boise, Moscow, Idaho Falls and Coeur d’Alene. To find out more about topics for the fall series, call Christian Petrich at 208/327-5409, or e-mail kathyo@uidaho.edu. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Water aficionados.