The national forests are lands of many uses, but not all uses are created equal. Every once in a while, one use trumps another. On the Helena National Forest recently, 22 Herefords drank too deeply from an arsenic-laced tailings pond at an abandoned mine near Helena, Mont. Fearful lest the dead cows poison bears and […]
Communities
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
A pothunter is nailed at last
Earl Shumway, the notorious pillager of Anasazi burial sites in Utah, has been convicted of looting. Shumway had built a record of illegal pillaging of historic sites since 1984, bragging that he was untouchable (HCN, 12/26/94). When asked by The Salt Lake Tribune to describe Shumway, Utah state archaeologist Dave Madsen was brief: “Pothunter. Looter. […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Heard around the West
Everyone agrees that environmentalism has been hit out of the ballpark by “Wise Users’ and Republicans. But no one knew why we’d whiffed until Glen Martin of the San Francisco Chronicle did an analysis. Deconstructing his article (it used to be called reading between the lines) shows that Greens spend too much time hiking and […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Grow up, dig in, and take root
Outside magazine recently picked six or seven towns – mostly in the West – as great places to live. But those seduced into pulling up stakes by the glossy photos and idyllic promises in July’s cover story should first consider a few facts. Here are three days’ worth of headlines from the Spokesman-Review, the newspaper […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Pictures worth 2,000 words
Q: When is graffiti not graffiti? A: When it’s very, very old, perhaps as much as 2,000 years old. That’s the opinion of experts who looked at the sandstone wall of Buckhorn Wash in central Utah. They said the human figures and animals were painted by people called Barrier Canyon Indians, although pioneer settlers, explorers […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Nobody’s home in resort towns
Homes, not people, are populating resort towns in Colorado. The Northwest Council of Governments says that the house vacancy rate in Vail – the emptiest town in Colorado – jumped from 59 percent in 1990 to 72 percent in 1994, reports the Vail/Beaver Creek Times. While vacancy rates in towns such as Steamboat Springs, Breckenridge […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Losing the border blues
LOSING THE BORDER BLUES Since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, exports to Mexico haven’t boomed nor have jobs increased in the United States. If you’re searching for better news on NAFTA, take a look at the summer 1995 issue of The Workbook. In its feature article, “Cleaning Up the Border: Will Sustainability […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
‘Green’ professor cleared in Wyoming
In a decision that rankled officials of Wyoming’s extractive industries, the University of Wyoming has cleared one of its law professors of allegations that his work with environmental groups amounted to misuse of university facilities. University president Terry Roark said that Mark Squillace’s work with Friends of the Bow, the Wyoming Outdoor Council and the […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Denver vs. the West
Six months after its grand opening, pricey Denver International Airport continues to shake up air travel around the West (HCN, 1/23/95). First, the cost of building and doing business at the mega-airport helped persuade Continental Airlines to all but abandon the Rocky Mountains. Now, blaming the same unprofitable dynamics, the commuter airline, GP Express, is […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
My kingdom is a horse
It was a gold mountain. The gray lodgepoles of the corral sorted it into altitudes: hooves and pasterns, the flaring column of muscle and bone above the knee, the glossy wheatfield of chest, and under a mane of cloud, the great, soft planetary eye. At four, I learned a trick. I would scoop double-handfuls of […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Endless opportunities for solitude
No place on earth has anything quite like the roads of the Great Basin. Maybe the most distinctive recollection of my life 15 years ago at Deep Springs College along the California-Nevada border, was dropping off Westgard Pass into Deep Springs Valley driving a ratty Chevy pickup truck whose sole virtue was a passable sound […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
A 22,000-square-foot castle is not a home
From the living room of my 1,200-square-foot house, I’ve watched a new house going up across the pasture and realized I live in a modern version of a log cabin. My house wasn’t built by hand, and the crew who built it worked together only from eight to five, although a few shared beers afterwards. […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Prison payrolls come with big hooks
I live in Salida: downstream from the Buena Vista Correctional Facility and its associated boot camp, and upstream from Canon City, home of Colorado’s major prison complex, and Florence, which now boasts a federal penitentiary, “the Alcatraz of the Rockies.” And so I’ve noticed, firsthand and in my backyard, that most discussions of prisons ignore […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Heard around the West
Department of What About The Horse? Any person atop a bucking bronc in a Navajo rodeo may soon have to wear safety equipment, reports The Najavo Hopi-Observer. Injuries (to people) have been identified as a problem, so the tribe’s Injury Protection Committee wants to make all rodeo cowboys compete in “rodeo safety vests’ that are […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
The Subdivision Massacre: Part II
THE SUBDIVISION MASSACRE: PART II Hot on the heels of his blockbuster video, Subdividing the West: Implications of Population Growth, Colorado State University wildlife professor Richard Knight has released a sequel: Saving the West: Protecting Open Space, starring a county commissioner, a Nature Conservancy staffer, the originator of one of the nation’s most successful open […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
The diplomat ecologist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “I came off the mountain saying probably the best way to save this place is to build an observatory …” Conrad Istock is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the U of A’s College of Arts […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
The biogladiator
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “Biologists who don’t speak out on biological issues become the passive accepters of the loss of biodiversity …” Peter Warshall, an adjunct scientist at the University of Arizona, directed research for an environmental impact statement on Mount Graham […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
The petitioning ecologist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “My objection to the project is based on … the lack of vision about what’s important to preserve in the Southwest.” Mark Fishbein is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Arizona’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology; […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
The straight arrow
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Making a mountain into a starbase. “The university has no choice except to tilt the rewards system toward faculty and departments that can generate the most money. And that’s bad.” Frank Gregg, head of the BLM under President Jimmy Carter, was a U of […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
The university aimed for the stars and hit Mount Graham
The sins of land-grant universities are usually those of inertia. The land-grants are old-fashioned. They’re politically cautious. They’re financially dependent upon the powers-that-be in their states. Young faculty with new ideas often hold their tongues rather than speak their minds. There’s a culture of countrified politeness among land-grant faculties that can be stultifying. Watching for […]