Dear HCN, It does no good when environmentalists such as Jon Marvel use billboards. I quote from him: “I loved it … the open spaces, the beautiful mountain vistas …” (HCN, 8/2/99). He hates to see pristine creeks sullied by cattle. How about pristine views? Many make the argument the billboards are already there. My […]
No billboards, please
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Jon Marvel, elitist
Dear HCN, Despite Jon Marvel’s insistence that he is a lover of the land, his objective is not to improve the landscape in the West, but to play a game in which his unwillingness to entertain a holistic view of the issues endlessly entertains him. His agenda apparently dates back to the days he lived […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
The lessons of Jon Marvel
Dear HCN, Jon Marvel did not adopt his attitude toward ranchers or his extraordinary tactics overnight. As you report, his attitude was formed over the course of 30 years as a neighbor of ranchers and 20-plus years as a resident of Idaho (HCN, 8/2/99). This pattern is repeating itself time after time across the West. […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
He’s no Milosevic
Dear HCN, I know Jon Marvel, and he’s no Slobodan Milosevic. While Steve Stuebner’s profile of anti-grazing activist Jon Marvel in the Aug. 2, 1999 issue of HCN revealed a man rightly deserving of the title maverick or gadfly, he certainly is no Slobodan Milosevic. In that article, editor Betsy Marston mistakenly cited an anonymous […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Irresponsible journalism
Dear HCN, You owe Jon Marvel an apology (HCN, 8/2/99). It was irresponsible of you to have published an unattributed quotation comparing him to a war criminal. As an editor, I consider it a libelous statement. Jon Marvel is motivated by love of the West – the land and the people, including future generations – […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Go, Jon
Dear HCN, To Jon Marvel, anti-grazing campaigner: You just keep beatin” on “em, Jon, I love the sound of their squeal (HCN, 8/2/99). Fred Parkinson Oakland California This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Go, Jon.
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
The real facts from FREE
Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ piece on the taking project (HCN, 8/2/99) is factually incorrect and mischaracterizes FREE’s Environmental Economics and Policy Analysis seminars for federal judges. Margolis accepts verbatim the assertions put forth by Douglas Kendall of the Community Rights Counsel. Margolis never contacted FREE regarding his story. If he had, I would have told […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Appraisals are the problem
Dear HCN, I read with interest and enjoyment your editorial about our former neighbor, Tom Chapman (HCN, 8/2/99). Of course, the problem is that when Congress created the wilderness lands in 1964, it chose to deal with inholdings sometime in the future. The value of those inholdings, like most real estate, has risen significantly since […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Wilderness inholders are victims of genocide
Dear HCN, To set the record straight, Tom Chapman is not an owner in TDX nor has he ever been. The TDX real estate brochures advertise private property for sale from one private party to other private parties. The TDX proposed homes are no different from other homes being constructed near Vail. The homes offered […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
The Wayward West
A golf course planned for a national forest has landed in the rough. In 1998, the Sierra Club legally challenged a 1997 decision allowing Dempsey Construction to expand Snowcreek Golf Course onto 95 acres of national forest (HCN, 2/16/98). This month, Inyo National Forest Supervisor Jeff Bailey withdrew the permission. “We have determined that there […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Grand Canyon development sparks debate
The Forest Service says a new 272-acre development near the south entrance of the Grand Canyon can control growth near the park. Critics, including some environmentalists, are not convinced. “They’re creating mass development … ext to one of our crown jewels,” says Sharon Galbreath of the Sierra Club’s southwest office. Canyon Forest Village, which got […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Horses shy from competition
Connie Berto was walking her horse down a wide fire lane in Marin County, Calif., when a mountain biker, traveling at high speed, missed her by inches. It’s not an uncommon experience on the West’s public trails. Pressed by other trail users, horses and their riders are finding themselves less welcome on some trails. “Equestrians […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Trappers set free in Big Sky state
After several months of debate, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks commissioners recently voted on new trapping regulations. Most of the rules will remain the same. “The trapping community in Montana has done quite well,” says Kevin Feist, a Kalispell-area man who advocates more stringent rules. “They only have to do a couple […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Second tram heads for Moab
The redrock desert around the tourist town of Moab, Utah, has been colonized by motels and mountain bikers for over a decade. Still, some locals never thought they’d have to worry about ski lifts. Now, less than six months after a controversial chairlift opened for business on the west side of Moab, the county planning […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Can the Preble’s mouse trap growth on Colorado’s Front Range?
Note: a sidebar article, “The city mouse,” accompanies this feature story. COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – On the 13th floor of the tallest building in town, Steve Sharkey, vice president of Picolan Inc., pulls out his plans for the Northgate development. It’s a 1,200-acre residential and commercial development at the edge of town, and it’s been […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
In the new West, we’re all tourists
In Wyoming, they say, “We don’t want to become like Jackson.” In Colorado, “We don’t want to become like Aspen.” In Utah, more fervently, “We don’t want to become another Moab.” Yet these same people never say, “I don’t want to be a Julia Roberts or Brad Pitt.” Hal K. Rothman, who is a history […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Heard around the West
Professional vegetarians really know how to hurt a guy. A proposed billboard campaign throughout the West from PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, features a busty babe wearing a bikini and a big grin, while a string of bologna cascades over one shoulder. But the billboard says there’s a problem: “Eating meat can […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
The city mouse
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Preble’s meadow jumping mice deserve their name: By using their strong hind legs and (relatively) big feet, the three-inch mice can jump more than a foot and a half into the air and can leap three feet horizontally. Their long tails are […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
A desert boomtown comes to terms with its quiet neighbors
Note: a sidebar article accompanies this feature story: “Slow and steady.” Hirschi feared the consequences as much as anyone. He had started hearing about tortoise troubles when he was a field representative for Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah. In 1989, he was elected a Washington County commissioner. He’d seen a disaster unfold in the Las Vegas […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Slow and steady
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Desert tortoises don’t have an easy childhood. Since the softer shells of baby tortoises make them easy prey for ravens and coyotes, less than 5 percent survive to adulthood. Tortoises who make it to maturity typically live long lives – they’ve been […]