Letter to the editor

Dear HCN: The emergency timber salvage sale amendment tacked on to the budget package in the House and the Senate spits in the eye of the public and does nothing to improve the health of our national forests (HCN, 4/3/95). Now, we must urge President Clinton to veto this attack on our forests and our […]

Dear HCN, Your headline, “Counties May Shrink Utah Wilderness’ (HCN, 3/20/95), sounds downright cheerful. A more accurate headline would have read, “Counties Will Obliterate Wilderness.” Here in Iron County, Commissioner R.L. Gardner told the press before the first hearing, that “I personally feel that there is no need to set aside more land.” He was […]

Dear HCN, The March 6, 1995 edition of HCN contained several articles on fire, and most were well-balanced and informative. Unfortunately, one article, “After the fire comes the real devastation,” contained significant inaccuracies that may have misled some of your readers. Much of the focus of the article was on an erosional event that occurred […]

Dear HCN, Even crocodiles cry, and Steve Mealey’s tears, lamenting the post-Foothills Fire dearth of biodiversity on the Boise National Forest, fall like acid rain. This is the same myopic, good-old-boy “Barber of the Boise” who rammed through the huge Foothills timber-salvage fire sale on previously heavily logged national forest land. Fred Neuman Monument, Oregon […]

FIRES MAKE PUBLIC PROPERTY WALK OFF Dear HCN, Forest fires do indeed cost a lot of money (HCN, 3/6/95). Although it is a drop in the bucket compared to leasing a heavy helicopter, one simple way to cut costs would be to prevent theft. Last fall, I’m disgusted to say, I was involved with a […]

DON’T GIVE UP FISH FOR PENNIES Dear HCN, In my 40-odd years of fishing for trout, steelhead and salmon, I have always had reason to smile, even on bad days. But this year, Idaho fishermen have nothing to be happy about. We have been sold out for $1.23 per year. The National Marine Fisheries Service […]

Dear HCN: The February 20 High Country News article about the Idaho salmon lawsuit painted a misleading picture. The issues are not about minor legal technicalities, nor gaps between urban and rural folks. The court’s slam-dunk decision was the result of the continued failure of the Forest Service to follow the law and protect dwindling […]

Dear HCN, We read the “Waaaaaahh” essay you published on the back page of HCN Feb. 20, and found it beyond insulting and beneath contempt. It made us sad to see you endorse such sweeping cruel generalizations and obvious vulgar innuendo. Sadder that it appeared just when polarizations and lack of trust over wolf, water […]

Dear HCN, If the concept of “takings’ is to be a part of our way of life, then the concept should extend to population growth. Increased traffic congestion resulting from population growth could, for example, cause a person to spend an extra half-hour a day commuting to and from work; added up over a working […]

Dear HCN, County officials throughout the West are talking about “taking back the land” by abolishing the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service. Last year we began hearing a legal argument that New Mexico was denied statehood on an “equal footing” with the original 13 states, contrary to the U.S. Constitution. This old theory […]

Dear HCN, Last summer I spent several days in Salmon, Idaho, as part of my research on the human dimensions of ecosystem management. I expected to hear the same sort of petulant threat-mongering that Jon Margolis mocked – something I’ve heard increasingly often in my years of listening to the voices of the rural West […]

Dear HCN, The Feb. 20 HCN had three very provocative opinions expressed on its back pages. I was startled, however, by Ray Rasker’s comments which followed “Education … is an important determinate to individual success …” He meant that old-timers need to become educated, which is true. I had assumed that he was going to […]

Dear HCN, During the last 15 years of my 27 years as a fish and wildlife biologist, I came to realize that good range conservationists in the Bureau of Land Management can do more for our public lands than all other disciplines combined. For reader-clarity sake: A “good” range con is one who constantly and […]

Dear HCN, Your recent issue on the new Denver airport (HCN, 1/23/95) has caused me to conclude that your standards of journalistic and intellectual honesty are about on the same level as the slickness of your production. Never before have I encountered anything in your paper where you are so wrong (my opinion) and where […]

Dear HCN, Here’s how to save time and effort preparing your next special issue: Take the Denver Airport article and, wherever it says “Denver,” write in “Salt Lake City,” replace “International Airport” with “Winter Olympics.” Seriously, while there obviously are some differences, I was struck by the similarities. Utah politicians are falling over themselves singing […]

Dear HCN, Every time I read a “protect our constitutional rights’ or “jobs save our rural lifestyle” rap (HCN, 1/23/95), I think of two things: The first is that a “rural” lifestyle is a romantic vision that these people have not lived for several generations, if then. They do not grow much of their own […]

Dear HCN, If the administration and Congress want to reform the welfare program, they should not overlook ranchers that graze livestock on federal lands. Some of the richest people in the United States are welfare ranchers: William Hewlett and David Packard, of Hewlett-Packard Co., the computer manufacturing giant, graze cattle on more than 94,000 acres […]

Dear HCN, There is a healthy dose of irony in the Dec. 26 article regarding the battle between Arizona’s Prescott College and Tonto National Forest over a 60-year-old cabin. This otherwise unnoteworthy controversy serves to expose the major shortcoming, and in my mind, insincerity, of the organized environmental movement. Reporter Peter McBride neglects to consider […]

Dear HCN, Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes, 1933-1946, made a powerful public statement in 1935 supporting wilderness at a conference of state park authorities. Given the public mood, I believe it is time to hear from the old curmudgeon once again: “I am not in favor of building any more roads in the national parks […]

I am intrigued by Ed Marston’s statement (HCN, 12/26/94) that “There have been a bunch of studies of this new economy by environmental groups and their economists; almost all welcome it.” The economy of the New West is not necessarily better – just different. It brings with it new opportunities but also new problems. Our […]