Tourists noticed it first. A thin brown haze hung in the air like a nylon stocking obscuring the view of the Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area in northwest Colorado. Alerted by complaints, the Forest Service set up cameras at the Storm Peak Weather Lab on top of the Steamboat ski area. The cameras took pictures three […]
Climate change
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Smog talk
SMOG TALK The crystal-clear skies of the sparsely populated Colorado Plateau have become increasingly muddied by power plants, mining operations, wood-burning stoves, and even automobile smog from Los Angeles. From Nov. 27 to Dec. 7, the public will have a chance to comment on five proposed solutions to the problem at meetings in eight Western […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
‘Housewife from Hell’ bird-dogs a cleanup
One morning in a town close to Missoula, Mont., a Superfund cleanup pushed into Tina Reinicke-Schmaus’ life with a backhoe. The event transformed her into a “Housewife From Hell,” she jokes. As a social-services worker, student and mother, she already had plenty to keep her busy. But soon she became the local expert on a […]
Posted inOctober 2, 1995: Did Idaho libel the feds?
When regulations are lax, s— happens
In the once-pristine valleys of eastern Idaho, ooze from malfunctioning septic systems in older subdivisions has seeped into groundwater used for drinking. Health officials in Island Park recently found fecal coliform contamination and shigella – a bacterium that causes severe diarrhea and cramping – at several homes and one resort. At a subdivision near Salmon, […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Hazardous burning plan snuffed
With years of citizen opposition and a zoning ordinance looming over them, a cement company has announced it no longer wants a permit to burn hazardous waste in its Montana City cement kiln. Local environmental groups that fought the project say it’s been a long, hard fight. “They have been absolute hard-core corporate bulldogs about […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
L-P’s problems mount
Officials at Lousiana-Pacific expected the worst and they got it. On July 16 the company and two former managers of its Olathe, Colo., waferboard plant were indicted on 56 counts including conspiracy, fraud and violation of environmental laws. Federal prosecutors and EPA criminal investigators charge that plant managers tampered with an emissions monitor in Olathe, […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
As landfills tighten up, midnight dumpers spread out
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Some people hiking through Verde Valley in central Arizona stumble upon a spot that just doesn’t smell the way a piûon-juniper forest should. A strong chemical odor fills the air and there’s a large, wet blotch on the otherwise dry ground. After testing the soil, the U.S. Forest Service determines that somebody […]
Posted inMay 29, 1995: Politics 101
The pendulum swings from dry to wet
Westerners who have been praying for an end to a decade of drought may have prayed a little too hard. The West is wet once again, and in some places downright soggy. Many states have been so loaded with snow this winter that residents are keeping their fingers crossed as rivers surge to the flooding […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
L-P coughs up
Corporate giant Louisiana-Pacific must answer, finally, to a diminutive plaintiff. Four families who successfully sued the wood-products company two years ago will now collect their $2.3 million settlement. The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied the company’s appeal of the original judgment, reports the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. The case centers on the small town of […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
Wildlife among the victims of drought
From New Mexico to the eastern slopes of the Cascades, the West is suffering from a sixth year of drought. Various combinations of thin snowpack, hot weather in spring and summer causing premature runoff, and scant summer rain are to blame. The drought is a contributing factor to wildfires which have burned over 2 million […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
EPA hands off Superfund tailings to Idaho
BOISE, Idaho – In a deal hailed as a first nationwide, the Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to let Idaho environmental authorities take the lead in cleaning up old mine tailings in Triumph, near Sun Valley. The question is, will the state be any more successful than the EPA in devising a cleanup plan for […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
House of Garbage
HOUSE OF GARBAGE Call it the house that Goodwill built. A recently completed home in Missoula, Mont., carries the concept of second-hand construction materials to new levels. Built by the Center for Resourceful Building Technology, the 2,400-square-foot house showcases dozens of innovative products. Recycled newspaper went into its wall panels, shelving and insulation; light bulbs […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Drought for the Northwest
Although snowpack levels throughout the West are average or better this year, the Northwest faces another year of drought. As of mid-May, the water content in Washington’s and Oregon’s snowpack was between 20 and 59 percent of normal, while precipitation in the Snake River Basin averaged just half of normal. Low reservoir levels and trickling […]
Posted inMay 2, 1994: A struggle for the last grass
Utah utility takes aim at Colorado air
The U.S. Forest Service determined last summer that air pollution was reducing visibility and increasing degradation from acid rain in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area in northern Colorado’s Routt National Forest. It should come as no surprise, then, that Colorado forest officials, environmentalists and air-quality managers – not to mention the Environmental Protection Agency and […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
Pay as you waste, says EPA
It’s a new world for rural trash
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
Washington county splits in half over proposed dump
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Pay as you waste, says EPA. HOOPER, Wash. – Burying Seattle’s garbage in rural eastern Washington is like putting a toilet in a refrigerator, according to cartoonist Milt Priggee of the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman Review. That sums up the feeling of opponents of a […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
State-by-state trash
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Pay as you waste, says EPA. Idaho had 85 landfills, according to Katie Sewell, solid waste coordinator in the state department of environmental quality; by summer, that will be down to 30, and most of the panhandle counties will ship their trash to big […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
Federal land managers put up no-dumping signs
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Pay as you waste, says EPA. New EPA rules haven’t been the only federal vexation for rural counties. About 425,000 square miles of “land that nobody wanted” is administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management, and in almost 300 places in the West, […]
Posted inMarch 7, 1994: Pay as you waste, says EPA
A guide to some trashy reading matter
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Pay as you waste, says EPA. When it comes to trash, most reading matter is so boring that it belongs in the local landfill. Two informative exceptions: The Garbage Primer: A Handbook for Citizens, produced by the League of Women Voters and published in […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Texan fights out-of-state wastes
In Sierra Blanca, Texas, someone burned Bill Addington’s family lumber yard to the ground last September. Addington says the arson was a message to him and others: Stop protesting the importation of sewage sludge and nuclear waste. Addington heads a citizens’ group of over 70 people which has resisted waste disposal from other states for […]