Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, Rabbit Babbitt’s reported comment relative to Florida’s Everglades (HCN, 5/16/94) that “when sugar companies blocked us in the Congress, we went to the state legislature in Tallahassee and last week we got a law there,” absurdly misleads anyone hearing it. The statute Babbitt brags about only assures our Everglades remain polluted by Big […]

Dear HCN, I have long appreciated High Country News’ in-depth treatment of natural resource issues. While I have not always agreed with your conclusions, I have usually believed that articles were thoroughly researched and conclusions were based upon objective analysis of the facts as they were known. One recent exception was the May 2 “Opinion” […]

Dear HCN, Unless we markedly cut back on grazing in our arid Southwestern lands such as HCN wrote about May 2, we will continue the process of desertification that has been ongoing ever since large-scale overgrazing started in New Mexico. That long-time ranchers will be forced out of business by adopting prudent grazing policies is […]

Dear HCN, I would like to commend you for excellent coverage of the problems plaguing the Gila National Forest in southwest New Mexico (HCN, 5/2/94). For too long, battles have been raging between environmentalists and wise-use proponents there without anyone sitting up and taking notice. Three years ago, my wife and I bought property in […]

Dear HCN, As a sometimes cross-country ski racer and mountain biker who occasionally dons lycra, I must say that I think T.M. Power misses the point when he examines the “caustic humor” that traditional Westerners seem to have for the newly arrived urban “services’ people (HCN, 5/2/94). Ranchers, loggers and miners produce real goods which […]

Dear HCN, My reaction to Rob White’s “Sacred Places’ (HCN, 3/7/94) was a bit different from Hannah Hinchman’s (HCN, 4/18/94). I felt White’s essay to be one of the most insightful I’ve ever read in HCN. Judging by Hinchman’s many fine points, I would guess that if she read “Sacred Places’ without prejudice she might […]

Dear HCN, High Country News couldn’t resist the urge to engage in BLM bashing in Florence Williams’ story on the El Pinacate reserve (HCN, 3/21/94). The front page states, “Directly to the north are public lands, U.S.-style: a military bombing range, cow-beaten BLM allotments, …” In fact there are no BLM-managed lands directly to the […]

Dear HCN, In the Grand Canyon Trust, HCN has finally found an environmental group on the Colorado Plateau that champions the idea that we need to win over local communities if we hope to win over the land (HCN, 4/4/94). Contrary to writer Jim Bishop’s assertions, the Grand Canyon Trust’s approach to resolving environmental conflict […]

Dear HCN, In Ed Marston’s review of Rangeland Health (HCN, 4/9/94), the term “handmaiden” pejoratively described the relationship between range science and the livestock industry. Why this female gendered word? Why not use “servant” or “lackey” or “busboy’? Are most range scientists female? I think not. Jane Crosby Boise, Idaho This article appeared in the […]

Dear HCN, As the former Colorado Plateau regional representative over a 10-year period (1974-1984) of Friends of the Earth, I applaud the efforts of the Grand Canyon Trust to involve local residents in resolving the region’s environmental issues (HCN, 4/4/94). Not every regional controversy, of course, such as the once-proposed massive coal strip mine to […]

Dear HCN, Michael Milstein’s article on coyote control really hit home with me (HCN, 4/18/94). During March of 1992 and 1993, aerial gunners, hired by the Prescott National Forest in Arizona, flew past my home and took down the coyote population in the surrounding hills by some 200 animals each year. The nightly caroling abruptly […]

Dear HCN, I don’t care much for Jeffrey St. Clair’s writing. This was my reaction to the first essay of his that I saw in your paper; and the feeling is only reinforced by his second essay (HCN, 3/21/94). Both pieces seek to validate accusations with such meaningless generalizations as “ecological cleansing” and “intellectual venereal […]

Dear HCN, Steve Stuebner’s article on the Idaho Training Range (HCN, 1/24/94, p. 5), a proposed Air Force bombing range that will turn approximately 3 million acres of southwest Idaho into a virtual battle zone, accurately reflects the stakes for Idaho’s environment. Environmentalists in other Western states ought to pay close attention to the Pentagon’s […]

Dear HCN, I had to read “Three mountain lions killed at Glacier” twice to believe it. “The risks to the residents were extraordinary,” a ranger is quoted as saying. Residents? Which residents? It sure did turn out to be risky for the lions. Since when are our national parks supposed to be safe suburbs for […]

Dear HCN: Please accept our thanks for the article on solid-waste management in rural areas (HCN, 3/7/94). It may well be the fairest treatment we have seen of these rules designed partly to keep today’s landfills from becoming tomorrow’s Superfund sites. One point, however, could have alarmed some small landfill operators. In discussing the Natural […]

Dear HCN, Terri Martin of the National Parks and Conservation Association voices alarm about the RS 2477 road right-of-way loophole now being employed by wise-use groups to frustrate the public interest (-Other Voices’ HCN, 3/21/94). In the interest of truth, she should tell the whole story. Rather than pursue a compromise on the issue of […]

Dear HCN, Maria Mondragon-Valdez wrote in your March 7 issue about the contentious issue of who should own the 121-square-mile Taylor Ranch in southern Colorado. She questioned whether a corporation or state entity should be able to “dominate and exploit resources at the expense of a community which considers the landscape part of its traditional […]

Dear HCN, The problem with George Wuerthner’s comments in a recent issue (HCN, 3/24/94) is that while he appears to be correct in his criticism of the extractive industries, in reality he’s about 10 percent correct and 90 percent missing the point. Our choices lie not between urban subdivisions and traditional grazing. Nobody’s talking about […]

Dear HCN, I would like to make a technical point. Increasingly, people are quoting the quasi-statistic that “anywhere one has to talk acres per cow, rather than cows per acre, is no place to be grazing livestock.” Even the world’s most intensively managed irrigated pastures do not often support a stocking rate in excess of […]

Dear HCN, Rob White in his essay “Sacred Places’ (HCN, 3/7/94) offers no alternative to what he sees as the evil of “making” places sacred. He states that it’s wrong, spiritually. Then what is right? Self-imposed exile from all non-urban places? Purely scientific investigation, excising any spiritual “response’? Absolute secrecy and muteness about what may […]