The Magazine

As the Bureau of Land Management inventories potential wilderness on the 174 million acres its oversees in the Western states, industry spokesmen are leveling charges of “land grab” while conservationists are concerned about the compressed timetables and a lack of knowledge.

A plan to divert the South Platte River in order to recharge groundwater and ease an agricultural water shortage on Colorado’s northeastern plains might also create wetlands that would provide needed wildlife habitat.

The Tennessee Valley Authority will begin remediation of a uranium mill in Edgemont, South Dakota, and the agreement about who will pay for the cleanup could pave the way for remediation of other sites across the West that are contaminated by uranium.

Largely because of pocketbook promises from the candidates, voters in the Northern Plains and Rockies states have apparently stacked the deck against progressive environmental lawmaking in the state legislatures next year.

Amory Lovins delivers a message that grassroots efforts and individual action can create a transition to “soft technology” — diverse, renewable, relatively simple and matched in scale to their end use needs.

As the National Park Service has expanded to manage new and unusual places, it has grown into a sprawling agency that is less professional than the Forest Service, less dedicated to management principles than the Fish and Widlife Service, and more set in its ways than the Bureau of Land Management.

Despite criticism, Alan Merson, recently appointed the regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency in Denver, doesn’t back down from claims that he’s an environmentalist.

A Sierra Club member’s attempt to compromise on oil and gas development on potential wilderness lands along the Overthrust Belt — a 60-mile wide swath of high petroleum potential that runs from northwestern Montana south into Utah — has won only mild praise and some criticism from the energy industry.

The Alaska National Interest Lands Act, which includes protections for Gates of the Arctic National Park, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and other wild lands, faces a tricky Congress debate and a looming deadline.

Despite President Jimmy Carter’s warning that he will veto any appropriations bill that includes six contested water projects, Congress has included those projects in the 1979 Public Works Appropriations bill.

Preliminary results from studies of vegetation near the Colstrip, Montana, coal-fired power plant indicate that plants are absorbing sulfur dioxide, and that crops and grazing land could be dramatically affected in the long term.

The federal government is desperately searching for ways to manage the horse and burro populations in ways that will be economically feasible and publicly acceptable, but environmental groups acknowledge there’s little chance of pleasing everyone.

When the Forest Service began its second Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II) a year ago, industry representative feared it. But now, as environmentalists and even agency officials themselves criticize the plan, timber and mining interests are the only ones who seem pleased.

Sen. Malcom Wallop’s shifty and compromising environmental record is an indication of politics in Wyoming, where “conservative” and “conservation” and still uneasily linked.

While air pollution is generally not considered to be a problem in the West (with the obvious exceptions like Los Angeles and Denver), all Western states have areas that do not meet minimum federal clean air standards.

Montana’s congressional delegation may be going through major changes this year after almost two decades of stability under the combined leadership of Democratic Senators Mike Mansfield and Lee Metcalf.

Political attacks against Arizona Congressman Morris Udall are one example of recent political backlash against environmentalism, and may be part of a larger shift toward conservatism.

Jay McGrew, an independent energy conservation consultant, says “the insulation business is a little bit like the insurance business. The salesmen always want to sell you more than you need.”

Idaho voters continue to elect both Sen. Frank Church, who has gained a national reputation as an environmental leader, as well as Rep. Steve Symms, who is known for wanting to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.

Colorado’s congressional delegation has the best environmental voting record of any state in the Northern Rockies. Only on the issue of water has Colorado recently voted as a typical inland Western delegation.