The Magazine

HCN lays out the West’s 10 most critical issues and the
paths toward positive results on everything from energy development
and drought to federal agency practices and endangered species.

Also in this issue: A judge rules
against a plan to salvage-log old-growth forest from the Timbered
Rock Fire in Oregon, and some say the ruling could affect other
proposed fire sales in old-growth forests.

Rick Johnson of the Idaho Conservation League is working
with Republican Congressman Mike Simpson on a wilderness bill for
the Boulder and White Cloud mountains, but not everybody in “Planet
Idaho” is happy with the bill.

Also in this
issue: Many of the people who supported George Bush, a
president with an anti-environmental record, also voted for
environmental ballot measures and green-leaning
candidates.

A new generation of fire managers works with fire, rather than just fighting it. Also in this issue: Ski bums try to survive in Ketchum, Idaho; the Sierras get a conservancy, and a river gnaws away at a tribal reservation

Aspen, Colo., and other mountain resort towns burst with
wealthy baby boomers’ second, third and even fourth homes. But for
much of the year those houses sit empty, and the towns are turning
hollow

Also in this issue: The Bush
administration halts three gas wells on Montana’s Rocky
Mountain Front, and tosses a few more election-year bones to
environmentalists and hunters.

Stewart Udall and his brother, Mo, were conservation icons
in the 1950s and ‘60s, but their sons – Rep. Tom Udall
of New Mexico and Rep. Mark Udall of Colorado – face a harder
fight in today’s Congress, where Democrats are the minority
and conservation has become controversial.

Also in
this issue: The Bush administration’s new salmon
plan treats dams as a natural part of the landscape, and sees a
recovery plan as more important than actual species
recovery.

The battle over Northwestern old-growth forests is raging
again, but behind the scenes, some locals are trying to make
peace.

Also in this issue: In Wyoming,
Gov. Dave Freudenthal tries to put the brakes on the oil and gas
leasing rush, but the drilling frenzy continues across the
West.

Wamsutter, Wyo., is a boomtown these days, but the town is
struggling to be a real community, instead of just a barracks for
the natural gas industry.

Also in this
issue: In Colorado and elsewhere in the West, the fear of
West Nile Virus brings the controversy about spraying pesticides to
a boil.

In Sierra Vista, Ariz., a partnership of developers, environmentalists and government agencies is trying to keep the San Pedro River alive, while at the same time allowing for continued growth in this burgeoning Sunbelt city. Also in this issue, Assistant Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett wants Congress to give the Bureau of Land Management increased incentive to sell off more public lands.

For all the heroism of their achievement, Lewis and Clark
would not have survived long without the help of the many Indian
peoples they encountered in the West. The Bush
administration says governors have 18 months to ask the Forest
Service to protect roadless areas in their states, but the states
will have to pay for the costly and complex petition
process.

A conservation movement is stirring on the Great Plains,
but local farmers are stuck with a harsh reality: It still pays to
plow up virgin prairie. The Forest Service plans to rein
in cross-country travel by off-road vehicles, but enforcing new
rules may prove next to impossible.

Mountain pine beetles are attacking more forests and more
varieties of trees — and thriving at higher elevations than
ever before — and some scientists believe global climate
change is at the root of the problem.


Also in this issue: A recent Supreme Court
ruling in a Utah wilderness lawsuit will limit the ability of
citizens to sue the government over how its agencies manage natural
resources.

On a 10-day walk through the northwestern New Mexico
desert, the author follows an ancient road that leads him from
silent Indian ruins into noisy, modern gas fields.

Also in this issue: Land managers have been
talking about letting more wildfires burn, but the recent blowup of
the Peppin Fire near Capitan, N.M. – home of Smokey Bear
– leads to renewed talk of aggressive fire suppression.

Wal-Mart wants to build more giant Supercenter stores in
the West, but communities like Inglewood, Calif., are starting to
take a stand against the world’s largest company.

Also in this issue: Even the National Rifle
Association came out in support of a Tucson, Ariz., open-space
saving bond, which passed in a landslide despite complaints from
critics that it was just pork.

Some activists hope that the current hard times facing
both workers and the environment will resurrect the strong
alliances that once existed between greens and labor unions.

Also in this issue: NOAA Fisheries is
drafting new regulations that will allow hatchery-raised fish to be
counted along with wild salmon and steelhead, a move that
property-rights lawyers hope will take the species off the
endangered list.

The West’s environmentalist lawyers are manning the
legal barricades, as the Bush administration stealthily attacks the
nation’s bedrock environmental laws.
Also
in this issue: Arizona activists team up with Rep. Raul
Grijalva to create a small-scale wilderness proposal for the
Tumacacori Highlands.

The Bush administration is outsourcing to private
contractors jobs formerly done by employees of federal agencies,
among them the job of the Forest Service Content Analysis Teams
(CATs) – the people who receive and report the comments of
the public. The team was sacked, many say to the detriment of the
public connection, and with increased cost to taxpayers.

Also in this issue: Controversial energy bill,
to increase domestic oil and gas drilling and force federal
agencies to expedite permits for energy projects on public lands,
came back yet again, but was defeated in the Senate,
50-47.

With the Interior West almost exclusively Republican
territory, “Democrats for the West,” a coalition of leaders, have
issued a challenge to fellow Democrats to create sustainable
Democratic majorities.

Also in this
issue: While mountain lions receive bad press for what
some say is increasing aggression against humans, experts say that
humans may be the real problem. Lion killing in most Western states
is increasing, and biologists say no state has ever had a sound
population estimate for the animals. Without sound data, politics
often plays into determining hunting quotas.

As private lands become the new frontier in the
West’s wild real estate frenzy, ranchers are turning to land
trusts in places like Gunnison, Colo., to find out how to hold on
to their land and keep it open and undeveloped.

Also in this issue: California decides
to set its own new “public health goal” for perchlorate
contamination, but critics point out that it is both legally
unenforceable and lower than the previous goal.

In Arizona, a historic water deal could give the tiny,
impoverished Gila River Indian Community a path back to its farming
roots – and turn it into one of the West’s next big
power brokers.

Also in this issue:
Western ranchers rejoice when a federal court jury finds that the
nation’s largest meatpacker, Tyson/IBP, has illegally
squeezed $1.28 billion from independent cattle producers.

Wyoming’s Green Mountain Common Allotment is one of
the West’s last big, wide-open landscapes – but these
days, ranchers, environmentalists, history buffs and the BLM are
arguing over whether it’s time to start putting up fences.

Also in this issue: Nearly a decade
after Imperial Valley irrigators fought off a water grab by Texans
Ed and Lee Bass, the Imperial Valley Irrigation District buys the
old Bass property, Western Farms, and the water rights that come
with it.