ESCALANTE, Utah – Heavy machinery rolled into town the week of April 12. Construction was imminent on the $7.5 million New Wide Hollow Reservoir that would provide water for a couple dozen ranchers in this rural southern Utah town. Then, on April 15, under pressure from environmentalists who say the reservoir would harm the Escalante […]
Greens not welcome in Escalante
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
Dear Friends
30 for $30 In 1992, High Country News raised the price of a personal subscription from $24 a year to $28. Since then, we have held the price line. Now we find ourselves in the position of the rancher who was losing $50 on every calf he sold. He decided to lick his problem by […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘We were created to serve all’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Scot McElveen is the chief ranger at Death Valley National Park: “It’s somewhat unrealistic to say we’re going to move land from more human-oriented uses to (management emphasizing) a stricter group of laws, but we’re not going to give you any staff to make […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘It didn’t need to be saved’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Janice Allen is a member of the Death Valley Advisory Commission. Since the 1860s, her family has grazed cattle on lands that are now within Death Valley National Park: “To me, it’s tremendously sad that lots of local people won’t even go (to the […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
So much land, so little money
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When the Mojave National Preserve was created by the Desert Protection Act in 1994, its enemies in Congress hit it where it hurts (HCN, 4/14/97). In 1996, California Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis led a successful effort to reduce the preserve’s annual budget to a […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘By and large, they’re heroes’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Dick Martin is the superintendent of Death Valley National Park: “In my mind, (rangers) are heroes. Once in a while they have to tell someone to do something they don’t want to hear, but, by and large, they’re heroes. They respond to people in […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘They’re just too rigid’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Reuben Scolnik is a longtime Death Valley National Park volunteer: “In order to accomplish their mission, (the Park Service) is slowly making it less interesting for the average person to visit the park. As I look at it, I don’t think it’s as interesting […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘I’m really embarrassed’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Kathy Goss is a resident of Darwin, California: “I’m a disillusioned environmentalist. I’m disillusioned with the way environmentalists took things into their own hands and pushed something like (the Desert Protection Act) through. Congress signed off on something it had never seen; the boundaries […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
Bureau of livestock, mining … and parks?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Al Gore joined President Clinton in 1996 in announcing the creation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, the vice president called it a “great monument to stewardship.” Yet by presidential decree the steward in this case was not the National Park […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘Humans aren’t that bad’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Jim Macey is a resident of Keeler, California: “The park and the Sierra Club have a really dim view of human nature. They equate more humans with more doom, more impact. They say, “Let’s not let anybody do anything.” There are a lot of […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘The more protection we have, the better’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Dick Anderson is an environmental specialist at Death Valley National Park: “There wasn’t complete agreement with the Desert Protection Act within the park. Just because it was the law doesn’t mean it was wholeheartedly supported by the staff, not at all. Myself not included […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
The last weird place
Can rangers and desert rats coexist in Death Valley?
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
My beautiful ranchette
My name is Susan; I live on a ranchette. In the growth-pained West, this is as serious a confession as alcoholism or cruelty to animals. A year and a half ago, I picked up my local newspaper in Bozeman, Mont., and there under the headline TRACKING SPRAWL was an aerial photo of the Bridger Mountain […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Yellowstone ban on boating is arbitrary
Rachel Odell’s article about the whitewater boating ban in Yellowstone National Park missed the heart of the issue: The standard for use in our national parks which was established by the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916 implies that as long as a use does not damage the resource, the National Park Service should […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
The gorge has been given away
I was appalled to read your recent puff piece about the Bea-Lang house being constructed in a critical place in my home, the Columbia River Gorge (HCN, 2/15/99). Your supposedly objective article claims “a big house slipped through” protections enacted by Congress in 1986. Nonsense. This monstrosity is not an anomaly but the norm – […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Land swaps: the real story
As one who makes a living on federal land exchanges and Land and Water Conservation Fund purchases, I was disappointed in Lynne Bama’s story on land exchanges (HCN, 3/29/99). Two exchanges which came in for heavy criticism in the article were the Huckleberry and Plum Creek exchanges in Washington state. The criticisms stemmed mainly from […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Speaking out for God’s forests
To discuss the state of the nation’s forests last year, the Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation met for several days on the California coast in the shadow of giant redwood forests. The campaign leaders emerged with a unified voice, calling for an end to the logging of old-growth forests and an end to commercial logging […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Conservation Voices
Conservation Voices has a new look. This revamped bi-monthly magazine of the Soil and Water Conservation Society most recently profiled a handful of landowners across the nation who’ve successfully restored their land. A six-issue subscription costs $15; contact Soil and Water Conservation Society, 7515 NE Ankeny Road, Ankeny, IA 50021-9764 (515/289-2331). This article appeared in […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Fellowship for Environmental Conflict Resolution on the U.S.-Mexico Border
The Ford Foundation/Udall Center Fellowship for Environmental Conflict Resolution on the U.S.-Mexico Border offers a paid opportunity to research, teach and write for a year on work pertaining to environmental conflict resolution. For more information, contact Robert Merideth at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Arizona, 803/811 E. First St., Tucson, […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
www.headwatersnews.org
Log onto the World Wide Web, type www.headwatersnews.org, and discover a single source for updates on environmental and community issues from the Rocky Mountains of the United States and Canada. The free Web site links the reader directly to Web sites of the original news sources, which are most often daily newspapers. It is a […]