Letter to the editor

I was both astounded and disappointed by your simplistic analysis of water issues in the article, “Taking the West Forward” (HCN, 12/6/04: Taking the West Forward). HCN states matter-of-factly that additional freshwater needs to be moved to meet the evolving needs of the West’s urban areas, and offers an unqualified endorsement of lining rural earthen […]

Your article “Taking the West Forward” nailed a key issue that typically escapes public notice: the system of water rights in the West that gives priority to the oldest users of water and typically requires water to be taken out of streams to be protected as a valid use (HCN, 12/6/04: Taking the West Forward). […]

The editors of HCN claim the Bush administration (and therefore everyone who voted for him) are out of touch with “Westerners” on environmental issues. I would argue that the environmental community is out of touch with Western values. A small crack formed between environmental interests and the rest of America in 1994 when the Republican […]

I would gladly learn to love the Healthy Forests Restoration Act if it were truly designed to promote healthy forests. Instead, the act provides cover for logging the remaining large trees in our national forests in the name of fuels reduction. What’s next — HCN endorsement of the president’s Clear Skies Initiative? David Edelson, Sierra […]

Just a note to say “Thanks” for the thoughtful suggestion to rally folks around environmental issues (HCN, 12/6/04: Taking the West Forward). My entire professional life, and now my time in retirement, has been focused on restoring and protecting the environment. I’ve never been as discouraged as I am now about where our country is […]

The essay by Rebecca Clarren on Measure 37 strikes a particular chord with me, because I am an offspring of one of those rural Oregonians that have sacrificed a lot to allow those fine “enlightened” city folk from the Willamette Valley to experience the beauty and serenity of Oregon’s unspoiled countryside (HCN, 9/22/04: In Oregon, […]

In the article “Election Day Surprises in the Schizophrenic West,” HCN has done something that none of the national news sources has done (HCN, 11/22/04: Election Day Surprises in the Schizophrenic West). You have gone beyond the red/blue label for states and given an excellent summary of the November election results. It is rather sad […]

Regarding Paul Larmer’s editorial “Storing fat from the feeding frenzy” (HCN, 11/28/05: Storing fat from the feeding frenzy): Wyoming may be doing a better job of managing oil and gas revenues; however, that revenue hardly compensates for the destruction of frenzied and uncontrolled development. Qwest, EnCana and coalbed methane drillers have the Bureau of Logging […]

Measure 37 was not a referendum on Oregon’s land-use laws (HCN, 11/22/04: In Oregon, a lesson learned the hard way). The ballot measure was designed to make it impossible to have those regulations in place. However, that is not the question that was asked. The measure asked voters whether they would approve compensation to private […]

Oregonians still have a reverence for Oregon’s features and future. What they signaled by passing Measure 37 is that they demand a government that is fair (HCN, 11/22/04: In Oregon, a lesson learned the hard way). Part of the problem is that land planners and environmental activists are never satisfied. The result is incrementally increasing […]

The exchange between SUWA Director Scott Groene and HCN Associate Editor Matt Jenkins is a fine example of the strategic dialogue which should be taking place within all Western wilderness campaigns (HCN, 9/27/04: Utah’s wilderness warriors reply). Those campaigns increasingly favor what is best described as a “Let’s make a deal” wilderness strategy. The price […]

In covering wilderness campaigns, HCN has invited us to party with Nevada “wilderness warriors” (HCN, 3/3/03: Wild Card); watch a rancher in Owyhee County, Idaho, kill a rattlesnake (HCN, 12/8/03: Riding the middle path); and learn the personal philosophies of the central players in Idaho’s Boulder-White Clouds proposal (HCN, 11/22/04: Conservationist in a Conservative Land). […]

HCN arrived this afternoon and I’ve already finished Adam Burke’s “Keepers of the Flame” (HCN, 11/8/04: Keepers of the Flame). Excellent. Especially happy to have found it in HCN, given all those dark mutterings of a couple of years ago about making the paper punchier and more attractive to young ’uns by shortening articles. I’d […]

Well, now we can only watch to see if Bush’s administration cooks the entire elephant in its own oil. As my friend James says, borrowing from Robert Reich: “Middle-class workers voting for Bush are like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders. “Millions of chickens voted for Colonel Sanders on Tuesday. “What’s for dinner for the next […]

The HCN profile of Stewart and Mo Udall is an excellent account of their heroic achievements to protect and to save the resources of the West (HCN, 10/11/04: The First Family of Western Conservation). Perhaps Mark and Tom Udall, with the genes and the same determination, will continue the legacy of the fathers. But, as […]

Your two-part series on the plight of the ski bum inspired this letter (HCN, 10/25/04: As the town hollows out, one Aspen neighborhood thrives) (HCN,.11/8/04: A new breed of ‘ski bums’ is anything but). Aspen is what it is today because young bohemians who supposedly believed in equality among the classes, wanted to shut the […]

In response to Geneen Marie Haugen’s essay (HCN, 11/8/04: American — and proud of it): I’m sorry those Dutch were rude. As a Dutch-American woman, I know that being confronted with the Dutch sense of righteousness can be disconcerting. The population is well known for its ever-wagging “Little Dutch finger.” However, Holland — in fact […]

I read Tom Reed’s essay in the Oct. 11 issue and was struck with the anti-gun rhetoric and the doom and gloom about the state of hunting in the West. First, although Tom considers the National Rifle Association a mere dispenser of propaganda, he should understand that it’s one of the few organizations that fights […]

I was delighted to see your story about the Udall clan (HCN, 10/11/04: The Coyote Caucus Takes the West to Washington). The story made me think about the time I first met Mark Udall. It was May of 1976, and my two buddies and I were camped on a bench above the Escalante River across […]

Thank you so much for your wonderful article about the four Udall congressmen. I knew Mo as a child in Tucson, and worked on his presidential campaign. I often meet younger people who never heard of him, especially now that I live in Iowa, far from the West I love. Mo was a giant man, […]