Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, High Country News publisher Ed Marston reacted to Sacramento Bee reporter Tom Knudson’s unflattering “Environment, Inc.” series on the fancy finances of the professional Green movement (HCN, 6/4/01: Environmentalism meets a fierce friend) by declaring “environmentalists must be led by relatively well-paid leaders backed by professional staffs,” just like their corporate PR enemies. […]

Dear HCN, Ed Marston wrote: “Environmentalism in the West is no longer a puny movement struggling to get the attention of the American public. For eight years, we sat at the right hand of power in the Clinton administration, working a revolution. “We had that power because the American people have bought into environmentalism and […]

Dear HCN, It isn’t often I see a story so well-written and, at the same time, so accurate as “Tribal Links” (HCN, 6/4/01: Tribal Links). Mr. Selcraig is to be complimented for managing the nearly impossible, colorful, sometimes flip characterizations and turns of phrase that are right on the money! I enjoyed reading that article […]

Dear HCN, Couldn’t help but notice the page 7 photo, “Power Site: Chimney Rock, New Mexico (Dale Schicketanz photo),” in the recent issue I received (HCN, 5/21/01). The Chimney Rock in the photo framed by those “National Scenic Powerlines,” is six miles north of New Mexico in Colorado (on the Ute Mountain Reservation lands, along […]

Dear HCN, I want to comment on Bruce Selcraig’s article, “Tribal Links” (HCN, 6/4/01: Tribal Links). Someone – Charlie Rose, I think – asked Sherman Alexie about the morality, the vibes of Indian casinos. Like, is it a “good” thing to do? Alexie said he was more concerned with the morality of having enough to […]

Dear HCN, With veiled amusement I read Louise Wagenknecht’s essay, “The year it rained money,” (HCN, 5/7/01: The year it rained money). You did it now, Louise. The cat’s out of the bag. Heaven forbid the American public should understand what those of us in the fire-suppression game have known forever, but do not like […]

Dear HCN, Louise Wagenknecht’s essay on the futility of firefighting (HCN, 5/7/01: The year it rained money) confirmed my family’s observations during a nearby fire last year. We watched in horror as 250 firefighters set pointless backfires, bulldozed miles of roads, and sawed down huge, rare trees that would not have burned. We saw dozens […]

Dear HCN, As a Christmas subscriber, I have both praise and criticism for three recent articles about nuclear waste in the West. In the Dec. 18, 2000, issue, Oakley Brooks authored a short but commendable piece called “Agency gets rebuked,” in which he unearthed a rather obscure report critical of the Department of Energy’s long-term […]

Dear HCN, I don’t know how many times I’ve read or heard that the solution to the differences between environmentalists and ranchers is “cooperation.” Lovely word, cooperation. Unfortunately, it seems to mean different things to different people. To the rancher, it’s “leave us alone to do our thing.” To most environmentalists, it means reducing the […]

Dear HCN, Steve Pyne’s fine article on Ed Pulaski, and the Forest Service’s corporate culture about forest fires, is a great read (HCN, 4/23/01: The Big Blowup). But Steve, like so many others, fails to see the main point about humans vs. fires. Fires happen. It’s not our fault. The idea that finding “a Pulaski” […]

Dear HCN, I have been amused for the past 30 years each time someone takes umbrage at the use of the word squaw while making the assertion that it is a vulgar term invented by white man to demean Native American women. We did encourage and abet the destruction of the early inhabitants by means […]

Dear HCN, Ah! Political correctness … and all its ironies. When I was younger, I’d get outraged at some of this nonsense. In my grandmother’s day, to have an outlaw or American Indian blood in the family was a shame and kept secret. But attitudes change, as well as word usage. Gay. Totally different word, […]

Dear HCN, Moab residents have good reason to be concerned about development of lands managed by Utah’s State Institutional and Trust Lands Administration (SITLA). “Luxury looms over Moab” (HCN, 3/26/01: Luxury looms over Moab). According to SITLA’s Ric McBrier, “this will be a quality project.” Before buying that promise, Moab residents should view the eyesore […]

Dear HCN, I read with great interest the cover article titled “Teach the children well” in the March 26 issue of High Country News. This subject is near and dear to me, as for many years I directed the water education program for the Utah Division of Water Resources. I was troubled, though, by what […]

Dear HCN, Before the debate over corporate vs. conservation-sponsored environmental education is presented in “Teach the children well” (HCN, 3/26/01: Teach the children well), a more fundamental problem should be addressed. Environmental education is science-based (regardless of who designs the curriculum), and the driving discipline is biology. Herein lies the problem: a strong biological curriculum […]

Dear HCN, A quotation on page 8 of the March 12 issue of HCN is a beautiful example of a doctrine of priorities that needs to be re-examined. An officer of the El Paso Water Utilities is quoted as saying that “Agriculture (which uses water from the Rio Grande) brings in only $60 million a […]

Dear HCN, Although I appreciated Lisa Church’s article on “Cloudrock,” the proposed luxury resort development in Moab (HCN, 3/26/01: Luxury looms over Moab), two important pieces of the story were missed. When Church describes the developer of the proposed Cloudrock lodge as “the Salt Lake-based Moab Mesa Land Company (MMLC),” she gets both her geography […]

Dear HCN, Reading Ben Long’s story in your March 12 issue, “Yellowstone’s last stampede,” was like getting a kick in the stomach. Who are these pea-brains on their disgusting machines that they can treat the park as though it’s their own personal Disneyland? They obviously care nothing for the land or the animals who must […]

Dear HCN, Out of Edward Abbey’s novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, came the term, “eco-terrorist,” defined as an extremist who so radically loved the ecosystems that sustain the earth, that he tried to protect them by “monkeywrenching” the tools of big extractive industry — dozers, dams and draglines — thus destroying the industrial juggernaut that […]

Dear HCN, As a Sierra Club member and former resident of New Mexico, I was very impressed with the “zero cow” initiative article, for it highlights the complexity of how to both use and protect public lands (HCN, 2/26/01: ‘Zero-Cow’ initiative splits Sierra Club). In the past, when the proverbial pendulum supported loggers, miners, ranchers […]