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 […]
Communities
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
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
Uncommon Bounty
Note: four sidebar articles accompany this feature story: a guide to identifying edible and medicinal plants, a profile of a mushroom harvester, and mushroom harvester Bill Knight and Hoopa Valley Tribal member Sherlette Colegrove sharing their views in their own words. With a few lengths of steel and the blue flame of a welding torch, […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Freedom of the woods
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Bill Knight is a 42-year-old mushroom harvester and buyer from Shelton, Wash. He got his start 10 years ago, and is a member of the Alliance of Forest Workers and Harvesters, a group providing a unified voice for the Northwest forest harvesters. “Someone takes […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
It’s our tradition
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Sherlette Colegrove is a 42-year-old member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Northern California. She, too, is a member of the harvesters’ alliance. Since 1993, Colegrove has been harvesting plants and mushrooms introduced to her by her grandmother. “When someone was sick, she’d say […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
An entrepreneurial spirit
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Each fall, Yan Saeteurn hitches a camper trailer to his V-6 Toyota pickup at his home in Redding, Calif., and heads four hours north to what is the locus of the matsutake mushroom harvest. There, near Crescent Lake, Ore., he builds a small wooden […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 1999: Uncommon Bounty
Renegade house with a view – for now
The three-story cedar house with its tall windows and panoramic views stands boldly on an open bluff near the rim of the Columbia River Gorge, where its prominence defies a federal law that says it should not be there. Since the house went up last year, it has become a test of the 13-year-old National […]
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 1, 1999: Saving the Platte
San Juan National Forest Artist in Residence
The San Juan National Forest Artist in Residence program offers artists the chance to stay at the historic Aspen Guard Station in exchange for producing a creative piece that represents their experience in the former ranger station. All types of artists are encouraged to apply by March 1 for the one- to two-week fall stay. […]
Posted inFebruary 1, 1999: Saving the Platte
College scholarships
The Sierra Club will award four-year college scholarships of $1,000 per year to 10 students from small communities in the Sierra Nevada region. Applications must be postmarked no later than March 5; for more information, write to Jackie McCort of the Sierra Club at 85 Second Street, Fourth Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105-5500, call her […]
Posted inJanuary 18, 1999: Desert sprawl
Environmentalists are ‘doing nothing’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Bill Arnold is a real estate broker and former county planning and zoning commissioner. “The environmental community doesn’t want the desert destroyed, but what the hell do they do to promote infill? They’re doing nothing. In May, we had a textbook case of […]
Posted inJanuary 18, 1999: Desert sprawl
Desert sprawl
Note: This feature story is accompanied by seven sidebars listed at the end. TUCSON, Arizona Last spring, tens of thousands of people strolled the Street of Dreams subdivision to gaze at a $749,000 mansion. Behind the house, man-made waterfalls flowed past prickly pear and saguaro cacti. Inside, a television set popped up from a nightstand […]
Posted inJanuary 18, 1999: Desert sprawl
‘It was God’s country’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Dee Dee Arnaud is once again a resident of the Catalina Foothills north of Tucson. “My family moved here from the Chicago area in 1946. My sister had respiratory allergies, and the dry air in Tucson took care of it. We lived in […]
Posted inJanuary 18, 1999: Desert sprawl
‘The party is over’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Doug McVie and his wife, Christina, live on five acres in the heart of the ironwood forest on Tucson’s northwest side. They are active in the environmental group, Desert Watch. “Once you see the surveying tags, the party is over. I called up […]
Posted inJanuary 18, 1999: Desert sprawl
‘People have a voice’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Gayle Hartmann is a longtime environmental activist in Tucson’s growth wars and a former Pima County Planning and Zoning commissioner. “The first time I spoke before the County Planning and Zoning Commission, it was 1971. I was living in the Tucson Mountains (west […]
Posted inJanuary 18, 1999: Desert sprawl
The roll call of sprawl
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ People per square mile in metropolitan Tucson in 1953: 5,000 … in 1998: 2,400 Acres of Sonoran Desert land cleared for new homes, offices and commercial buildings each day: 12 Average annual temperature in Tucson in 1900: 67 degrees … in the mid-1990s: […]
Posted inJanuary 18, 1999: Desert sprawl
Selling sizzle and steak
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ David Taylor is a veteran planner for the city of Tucson. “I got asked at a meeting once, “When did the town peak?” I said, “If you are a rich, old, white lady living in the Catalina Foothills, it peaked in 1940. If […]
Posted inJanuary 18, 1999: Desert sprawl
‘Let’s get it resolved’
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story headlined ‘Desert sprawl.’ Ron Asta, an environmentalist and Pima County supervisor from 1973 to 1976, is now a zoning consultant to small landowners. “After I lost my seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1976, I was offered a job by KUAT-TV (the local public TV […]
Posted inJanuary 18, 1999: Desert sprawl
Bitter farewell: A Montana valley succumbs to growth fever
We are losing the Bitterroot. The first place settled in Montana may be the first to go. The words stick in the throat. They have the growl of negativity, the un-American taste of failure. What can we do with such an impossible fact? On days when fresh snow sashes the high granite ridges, we ignore […]