FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – It was June of 1996, and temperatures had already cracked the 100-degree mark all over the Southwest. The brief winter rains were a dim memory, the sky was cloudless, and ponderosa pine forests near this northern Arizona town were choked with dry underbrush and spindly trees. Forest Service firefighters geared up for […]
Flagstaff searches for its forests’ future
Posted inMarch 1, 1999: Working the land back to health
Working the land back to health
Note: this front-page essay introduces this issue’s two feature stories. The two major stories here open long after crushing environmental defeats occurred. The magnificent ponderosa pine forests around Flagstaff, Ariz., were heavily logged during the past century, and the cut-over land has now sprouted into fire-prone thickets. To the west and north, the once-healthy grasslands […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
More on mail pollution
Dear HCN, The following is a note I sent to Al and Betty Schneider upon reading of their efforts to get control of junk mail in my first issue of a new subscription to High Country News (a newspaper I’ve wanted to get for years but have just now gotten as a gift subscription). Al […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Enlibra is just window dressing
Dear HCN, James Souby’s letter in the Dec. 21 edition concerning the Western Governors’ Association “Enlibra” program is contradictory. On the one hand, Souby lauds the Oregon Salmon Plan as a “good example” of “environmental management strategies that incorporate balance and stewardship” while on the other he asserts “skepticism” that Enlibra-style “solutions’ would work “where […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Don’t give up
Dear HCN, As an eighth-grade science teacher, I empathize with “Asta Bowen’s discouragement (HCN, 1/18/99). At times, just one negative interaction with a student or parent can cast a pall over your whole day and cause you to wonder about your choice of occupation. Ours is a profession where the results often do not surface […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Pogo was right
Dear HCN, I found it ironic that three of the four folks opposing sprawl that Tony Davis chose to highlight in his sidebars in the Desert Sprawl article are, in fact, “sprawlers’ themselves. Whether they moved to the Catalina Foothills in 1946, watched the east side of Tucson expand from their home in the Tucson […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
We did our job
Dear HCN, In Ted Williams’ original commentary on Nevada land exchanges, as it appeared in Fly Rod and Reel magazine, Williams wrote that the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics had an “obligation” to report on the Office of Inspector General investigation (HCN, 12/21/98). We agree. That’s why we did. It may also interest your […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
How we ended up with rural mansions
Dear HCN, I read with interest your Tucson sprawl article, but saw no solution (HCN, 1/18/99). Here in rural King County, thanks to Seattle politicians, we have all the downzoning that accompanied this state’s 1990 Growth Management Act (GMA). That act was the result of newcomers’ I’m-here-pull-up-the-gangplank mentality. The GMA called for a pristine countryside […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Riding the rails in Colorado
Rails may be the most cost- and energy-efficient way to move commodities across our landscape, but they’re also a shrinking asset; America’s major railroads abandon about 3,200 miles of track every year. How should state and local governments, and community activists, respond when a railroad files to abandon a line? Colorado, where rail mileage has […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Tucson draws a line on sprawl
TUCSON, Ariz. – A crowd of several hundred people burst into applause at a public meeting here, as the Pima County Board of Supervisors killed a developer’s plan to turn a cattle ranch into 6,100 homes, two golf courses, a hotel, shopping areas and an airstrip. The Jan. 12 vote, the first denial of a […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Activists block bison capture pen
Suspended 35 feet in the air from tripods made of tree trunks, two members of the group Buffalo Nations keep vigil. They are here to prevent the Montana Department of Livestock from building a bison pen outside West Yellowstone, Mont., near Horse Butte, about 15 miles from Yellowstone National Park. The department wants to capture […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Ghost town hangs on
SOUTHERN CROSS, Mont. – The handful of locals in this Montana ghost town are haunted by the specter of eviction. Protected by a 1998 court injunction, homeowners earned borrowed time to stay put. But they still face a court challenge from the development company that owns the land beneath their homes. About 20 people own […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Burial at Pine Ridge
The remains of 42 Oglala Indians, stored for years in numbered, steel drawers at the Smithsonian Institution, have now been laid to rest in South Dakota. The burial marks the end of a long journey that began more than 100 years ago. Some of the bones were pilfered from graves and others were stolen from […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
No love for Lycra in Moab
For the third time since October, someone has fired shots into the empty fee booth at the entrance to Moab’s Sand Flats Recreation Area, which includes the popular Slickrock bike trail. The Bureau of Land Management and Sand Flats are offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the culprits. Investigators have no leads, but […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Wolves colonize Jackson Hole
A lone wolf howl was heard in Jackson Hole, Wyo., for the first time in over 50 years this November. Since then, 11 wolves have been sighted in the area, some of them only five miles from the town of Jackson. Migrating south from Yellowstone, the animals make up three groups that seem to be […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
The Wayward West
All those cries of “5.7 Wild!” may have paid off for the Utah Wilderness Coalition. The Bureau of Land Management took a look at the public lands proposed for wilderness status by Utah environmental groups – and, in early February, announced that all 5.7 million acres have wilderness characteristics. “We’re pretty tickled,” says Mike Matz, […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Cows conquer condos
A 32,000-acre ranch will remain free of subdivisions – no small feat for property that straddles the border between Moab, Utah, and Grand Junction, Colo., an area being developed at a rate that’s twice the national average. The landowner, who has asked to remain anonymous, has been working since 1979 with a land trust in […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Does soccer tread on open space?
When a Washington state soccer association bought a 112-acre farm for its new soccer field recently, it started a bitter match over open space. The land, in the Sammamish Valley east of Seattle, is protected under King County’s 20-year-old farmland preservation program, and critics say a soccer field doesn’t measure up. “This soccer group thinks […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Yankee stay home
We seldom hear about things that don’t happen. I’m not talking about cancelled flights or broken dates. Or even about asteroids that didn’t collide with the earth. The nonoccurrences that interest me are the products of restraint. This interests me most with regard to the American Southwest. The moment I saw it, 40 years ago, […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Heard around the West
As 1998 came to a close, the oldest male grizzly ever captured in North America was killed by Montana officials. The 28-year-old, 460-pound bear had raided more than a dozen cabins over a two-week period, reports the Hungry Horse News, and had become a potential threat to people. All of the bear’s teeth were broken […]