Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, “Wolves take a heavy toll in Montana,” declared the headline (HCN, 9/15/97). At least 30 sheep killed by wolves over a six-week period in the Tobacco Valley of northwest Montana, according to the story. No doubt the loss of 30 head of sheep – -one of the worst wolf attacks on livestock in […]

Dear HCN, Though your recent issues covering the mining industry in the West were informative and interesting, I must call you to task for letting rabble-rouser Dave Skinner share the platform with credible witnesses. (HCN, 1/19/98) Why is it that “issues’ publications like High Country News, in struggling so hard to be unbiased, repeatedly allow […]

Dear HCN, As a geologist who thinks the flooding of Glen Canyon was tragic but who also happens to work for the Bureau of Reclamation, I can’t help but say something about the drain Lake Powell idea (HCN, 11/10/97). Over and over we hear from David Brower and others who claim that Glen Canyon is […]

It’s an awful job, but somebody has to do it – register an afterthought to Kathie Durbin’s story on the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, “Cows depart, but can antelope recover?” (HCN, 11/24/97). I have no problem accepting as fact that livestock grazing wrecked the place, that cows broke the cryptogamic crust, that Eurasian cheatgrass […]

Dear HCN, As one of the founders of King County Property Rights Alliance (King County surrounds Seattle), I take exception to Ken Toole’s essay on the Far Right and its wacky ideas (HCN, 12/8/97). I endorse the bulk of those “wacky” ideas, even though I haven’t been to church, fundamentalist or otherwise, for a good […]

Dear HCN, It is more than a little ironic that the arguments of a group – the Audubon Society – trying to enforce the letter of the Endangered Species Act yielded a result contrary to the one that they had hoped for. Their intention was to extend coverage of the act to all wolves, including […]

Dear HCN, Our backyards make up the majority of the nation’s public lands, and yet we Westerners don’t know how to talk about the future of those lands. That was clearly shown by two essays on recreation user fees in the Oct. 13, 1997, High Country News. Terry Anderson and Steve Hinchman both assumed that […]

Dear HCN, As a frequent user of trout streams on public lands, I have been amazed at the reluctance of some of my fellow fishermen to pay user fees. People who use $400 fly rods with $200 reels holding $45 lines, whose $150 vests and $100 boots and $200 waders ride in $20,000 cars, will […]

Dear HCN, As an original member of the Quincy Library Group, I was pleased to read an honest treatment of the QLG (HCN, 9/29/97). However, speaking as a forester and environmentalist who has been actively involved in Northern Sierra land management issues since 1975, I take issue with the letters in the Nov. 10 issue. […]

Dear HCN, I can remember when Tortolita near Tucson was undeveloped land, raw and ruggedly beautiful. Now it’s a suburb. So I was surprised and a little disappointed by the one-sided way that Tony Davis reported on the incorporation of the town of Tortolita (HCN, 9/29/97). I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when […]

Dear HCN, Ed Marston’s remarks about Wayne Aspinall and his allies demonstrates that Marston lived in another world during Mr. Aspinall’s tenure as chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee (HCN, 11/10/97). Theocracy, indeed! Mr. Aspinall may have been Mr. Chairman, but his accomplishments came about because of his ability to forge political compromise […]

Dear HCN, Draining Utah’s Lake Powell isn’t such a silly notion (HCN, 11/10/97). The river is filling the reservoir with sediment, and in the not-too-dim future much of the reservoir will become little more than a muddy plain. Once the reservoir contains more mud than water, the dam’s contribution to power production also will dwindle. […]

Dear HCN, In the article, “Wet summer a bust for firefighters,” Thomas Power, an economist with the University of Montana, said, “These are some of the best-paying jobs for unskilled labor in Montana” (HCN, 9/15/97). Calling forest firefighting an unskilled job is condescending as well as untrue. Anyone who has worked on a hot-shot crew […]

Dear HCN, The Wyoming stories by Paul Krza, Jeffery Smith and Hugh Jackson were insightful (HCN, 7/7/97). Having lived just north of the Wyoming border, in Billings, Mont., for many years, I used to watch those license plates from Wyoming pull into shopping malls and stores, load up the trunk and head home without paying […]

Dear HCN, Thanks for the Sept. 29 article on the “green” subdivision in Springdale, Utah, but it’s too bad the article did little more than lament a done deal. I propose you inaugurate a column of insensitive subdivisions and list names and phone numbers of unscrupulous developers, and local planning/elected officials who can alter or […]

Dear HCN, Writer Marc Reisner, in “Deconstructing the age of dams’ (HCN, 10/27/97), notes that rice straw needs a market outlet. Perhaps straw bale construction is not popular in California, but it is catching on in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado. It is inexpensive, kind to the environment, and a substitute for adobe construction, which […]

Dear HCN, To add a user-fee note from California: On Mount Shasta, the Shasta-Trinity National Forest is charging climbers $15 each to go above 10,000 feet, plus $5 per day to park at backcountry trailheads. The information officer at the ranger station told me that the fees were being put in place to avoid placing […]

Dear HCN, In your article, “The land is still public, but it’s no longer FREE,” you quote Randal O’Toole, a forest economist, as saying, “… the government has been managing land for ranchers and loggers, and collecting fees from them (HCN, 10/13/97). The result … is that the agencies have leaned toward the interests of […]

Dear HCN, Your story about setting user fees on public lands presented the irony of duplicitous standards. For years the environmental movement has been harping at industries to pay for their use of the land; now, when recreationists are asked to pay for their own abuse of the land (any use is abuse, by definition), […]

Dear HCN, I’ve just finished reading the articles about usage fees for hiking, camping, climbing, etc., and I must admit, it’s one of those peculiar times when I feel strongly both ways. My initial emotion is resentment. I despise unnecessary regulation – signs, signs, everywhere a sign, or a fee or a form. But I […]