More than 1,000 Native American people gathered in New Mexico to celebrate the 10th birthday of the Indigenous Environmental Network. The June gathering was held on the foothills of Mount Taylor, surrounded by the radioactive waste piles of Jackpile, the world’s largest uranium strip mine. The mine was worked by Atlantic Richfield/ Anaconda in the […]
Native Americans gather to defend homelands
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Day of 6 billion
The United Nations predicts that on Oct. 12, 1999, the 6 billionth human will be born. The U.S. Census Bureau says it happened last month. Regardless, the number is already having a big impact. To find out more, the U.N. recommends two Web sites: the National Audubon Society Population and Habitat Program (www.earthnet.net/~popnet) and the […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
America’s Redrock Wilderness
America’s Redrock Wilderness “I’m here to disprove the lie that local people don’t want wilderness; the truth is that most southern Utahns are frightened by runaway growth and want to see as much land protected from development as possible.” * Linda Wood, Cedar City, Utah, testifying at Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt’s 1995 hearings on wilderness […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Taylor Ranch sells
A land deal in southern Colorado has added another chapter to the tumultuous history of the Taylor Ranch. In the final days of July, owner Zachary Taylor sold the final 54,000 acres of the ranch to Western Properties Investors for $13 million. The ranch has been embroiled in a bitter land dispute since 1960, when […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Judge halts nine timber sales
After five years of an uneasy truce, both sides in the Pacific Northwest timber wars are slugging it out again (HCN, 11/23/98). On Aug. 2, federal Judge William Dwyer sided with 13 environmental groups and blocked nine major timber sales while threatening to stop dozens more. Dwyer ruled that the Forest Service and Bureau of […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
The Wayward West
A railroad must pay for illegally dumping toxic waste in Montana in the 1970s and 1980s. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad Co. used the Park County landfill to dump perchloroethylene, a solvent that can cause cancer and birth defects. The discarded barrels were marked “non-hazardous.” On July 21, a Montana jury ordered the railroad […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
An ugly message marches down an Idaho street
COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – The teenage kid standing next to me at the start of the July 10 Aryan Nations parade here had worked hard on his anti-Nazi sign. Using a variety of colors, he had painstakingly drawn the leader of the north Idaho neo-Nazis – Richard Butler – having, let’s say, non-missionary intercourse with […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Heard around the West
Fresh from a river trip through Cataract Canyon in Utah, five passengers and the pilot of a single-engine Cessna faced a nasty emergency: The plane from Redtail Aviation was lugging, failing to gain altitude. Adding to the tension was the weight of at least one man, reports the Times-Independent of Moab, Utah. He weighed “above […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Never underestimate a working majority
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Four years ago, shortly after the Republicans took control of Congress, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, glorying in her new status as a member of the majority, rose on the Senate floor to propose an amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill. She goofed. Still a newcomer (she had won the 1992 […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Reviving a refuge
TULE LAKE, Calif. – It goes by the unappealing name of “Sump 1-B,” and it is a far cry from the vast lakes and marshes that covered much of the lower Klamath Basin at the turn of the century. Only inches deep, its murky water is too hot for fish. Sump 1-B has a twin, […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
An island becomes a protest ground
PIERRE, S.D. – Thunderheads had been building over South Dakota’s capital city, and by dusk, most locals, on the lookout for a tornado, took cover. But a dozen or so Sioux Indian activists, camped in tepees and nylon tents on La Framboise Island in the middle of the Missouri River, didn’t go anywhere. They’ve been […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Dear Friends
Debut on the Web On Aug. 1, Web editor Chris Wehner launched our new site on the World Wide Web, and High Country News took a leap of faith. In the past, we’ve waited three months after an issue is printed before posting it on our Web site. We did this to encourage people to […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Do prairie dogs steal grass?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Over the past century, conventional wisdom has said prairie dogs compete with cattle for grass and dig holes that can break the legs of unwitting livestock. Maybe stampeding cattle injured themselves during long cattle drives of the 1880s, but not many ranchers say it […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
One grassland grows prairie dogs
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The sage-dotted prairie of Thunder Basin National Grassland in eastern Wyoming is alive with wildlife. Coyotes skulk in the draws while antelope outrun approaching vehicles across the flats. On slight knolls, ferruginous hawks and golden eagles are often seen at rest. In the overgrazed […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Shooting: It’s not a hunt per se
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The man in the baseball cap sits in a chair at a table, a high-powered rifle in hand. “Right there, he’s standing straight up right in front of you,” says his companion. “Get him.” “I got him,” says Randy. Boom! The rifle sounds, and […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Craig Knowles, scientist caught in the middle
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Stoic is the word that might best describe Montana biologist Craig Knowles. If he were a university professor, some students might pan him as boring. But the students who went on to become experts themselves might dedicate their first book to him. Wearing blue […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Prairie dogs found in pet stores and pounds
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “So this is where prairie dogs live.” That was the first thought in Rebecca Fischer’s mind as she drove up to a flourishing 300-acre dog town not far from the Marias River outside Shelby, Mont. Although she hadn’t seen a dog town since she […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Facts about prairie dogs
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Prairie dogs come in five types: Utah, Gunnison, Mexican, white-tailed and black-tailed. The Utah prairie dog is listed as a threatened species and the Mexican is listed as endangered. Prairie dogs are active during the day, but only if the sun is out. Socially, […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Do low incomes make Montana “poor’?
Dear HCN, My regular economic pen pal, Ed Marston, interprets the economic data in the Claiborne-Ortenberg Foundation’s report Montana: People and the Economy as showing that Montanans live in “poverty,” are “hurting” and “impoverished,” face a “failing” and “weak” economy, and do not live in a “middle-class’ society (HCN, 6/21/99). He concludes that we do […]
Posted inAugust 2, 1999: Jon Marvel vs. the Marlboro Man
Hats off to Stiles
The artful cartoon by Jim Stiles (HCN, 5/24/99) was deeply appreciated by many current and former National Park Service (NPS) rangers who have first-hand knowledge of the extent to which our parks have become increasingly militarized. I worked for the NPS as a seasonal backcountry ranger for six years (1987-92), and consistently received official commendations […]