GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK – As thunder rumbled in the distance and a hawk wheeled overhead, Grand Canyon Park Superintendent Rob Arnberger stood on the canyon’s rim and stared into a bank of television cameras. He said what a year ago he doubted he would ever get to tell the world: “Today we are saying […]
Climate Change
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Here’s a chance to speak up for clean air
Nineteen years ago Congress directed the EPA to clean up “any existing impairment of visibility” in the nation’s cleanest areas, called Class 1, and prevent further degradation caused by pollution from man-made sources such as coal-fired power plants and vehicles. The Environmental Protection Agency failed to act. It will be 1999 before any improvement takes […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Erasing the Southwest’s grandest vista
It was Barry Lopez who said that one of the dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret. Until the 1970s, when air pollution from California, Mexico and coal-fired power plants in the region began to limit visibility, the […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Farmers feel burned by clean air regs
Eastern Washington, with its rolling hills and mid-size cities, seems like a place where farmers and urbanites should easily coexist. But not in late summer, when farmers burn bluegrass fields to clear stubble and stimulate seed production. The conflict is most intense in Spokane, where clean air activists have long claimed that the clouds of […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Clearing the air on the Colorado Plateau
CLEARING THE AIR ON THE COLORADO PLATEAU It’s decision time for the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission, the group charged with restoring clean air to the five-state Colorado Plateau. Congress established the commission, which includes five Western governors and industry and environmental representatives, in 1991, allowing it five years to develop a plan to reduce […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
A wet winter misses the Southwest
Refreshed by last year’s drought-ending weather, most Westerners will wallow in water again this spring. Except in parts of the Southwest, where the fire season has already started, it should be a wet spring. Federal weather forecasters say reservoirs are full across most of the West and snowpacks are extremely high in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming […]
Posted inMarch 4, 1996: Who owns these bones?
Flooding: Whose fault?
It’s been a tough winter in the Pacific Northwest. After enduring widespread flooding and landslides in November (HCN, 1/22/96), the region was slammed even harder in early February by a combination of heavy rains and melting snow. The recent landslides were the worst in three decades, say experts; repair costs could exceed $40 million. While […]
Posted inNovember 27, 1995: Saving the ranch
Utility found guilty of polluting a wilderness
Tourists noticed it first. A thin brown haze hung in the air like a nylon stocking obscuring the view of the Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area in northwest Colorado. Alerted by complaints, the Forest Service set up cameras at the Storm Peak Weather Lab on top of the Steamboat ski area. The cameras took pictures three […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
Smog talk
SMOG TALK The crystal-clear skies of the sparsely populated Colorado Plateau have become increasingly muddied by power plants, mining operations, wood-burning stoves, and even automobile smog from Los Angeles. From Nov. 27 to Dec. 7, the public will have a chance to comment on five proposed solutions to the problem at meetings in eight Western […]
Posted inOctober 30, 1995: Nevada's ugly tug-of war
‘Housewife from Hell’ bird-dogs a cleanup
One morning in a town close to Missoula, Mont., a Superfund cleanup pushed into Tina Reinicke-Schmaus’ life with a backhoe. The event transformed her into a “Housewife From Hell,” she jokes. As a social-services worker, student and mother, she already had plenty to keep her busy. But soon she became the local expert on a […]
Posted inOctober 2, 1995: Did Idaho libel the feds?
When regulations are lax, s— happens
In the once-pristine valleys of eastern Idaho, ooze from malfunctioning septic systems in older subdivisions has seeped into groundwater used for drinking. Health officials in Island Park recently found fecal coliform contamination and shigella – a bacterium that causes severe diarrhea and cramping – at several homes and one resort. At a subdivision near Salmon, […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Hazardous burning plan snuffed
With years of citizen opposition and a zoning ordinance looming over them, a cement company has announced it no longer wants a permit to burn hazardous waste in its Montana City cement kiln. Local environmental groups that fought the project say it’s been a long, hard fight. “They have been absolute hard-core corporate bulldogs about […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
L-P’s problems mount
Officials at Lousiana-Pacific expected the worst and they got it. On July 16 the company and two former managers of its Olathe, Colo., waferboard plant were indicted on 56 counts including conspiracy, fraud and violation of environmental laws. Federal prosecutors and EPA criminal investigators charge that plant managers tampered with an emissions monitor in Olathe, […]
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
As landfills tighten up, midnight dumpers spread out
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Some people hiking through Verde Valley in central Arizona stumble upon a spot that just doesn’t smell the way a piûon-juniper forest should. A strong chemical odor fills the air and there’s a large, wet blotch on the otherwise dry ground. After testing the soil, the U.S. Forest Service determines that somebody […]
Posted inMay 29, 1995: Politics 101
The pendulum swings from dry to wet
Westerners who have been praying for an end to a decade of drought may have prayed a little too hard. The West is wet once again, and in some places downright soggy. Many states have been so loaded with snow this winter that residents are keeping their fingers crossed as rivers surge to the flooding […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
L-P coughs up
Corporate giant Louisiana-Pacific must answer, finally, to a diminutive plaintiff. Four families who successfully sued the wood-products company two years ago will now collect their $2.3 million settlement. The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied the company’s appeal of the original judgment, reports the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. The case centers on the small town of […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
Wildlife among the victims of drought
From New Mexico to the eastern slopes of the Cascades, the West is suffering from a sixth year of drought. Various combinations of thin snowpack, hot weather in spring and summer causing premature runoff, and scant summer rain are to blame. The drought is a contributing factor to wildfires which have burned over 2 million […]
Posted inAugust 22, 1994: Whose fault? A Utah canyon turns deadly
EPA hands off Superfund tailings to Idaho
BOISE, Idaho – In a deal hailed as a first nationwide, the Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to let Idaho environmental authorities take the lead in cleaning up old mine tailings in Triumph, near Sun Valley. The question is, will the state be any more successful than the EPA in devising a cleanup plan for […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
House of Garbage
HOUSE OF GARBAGE Call it the house that Goodwill built. A recently completed home in Missoula, Mont., carries the concept of second-hand construction materials to new levels. Built by the Center for Resourceful Building Technology, the 2,400-square-foot house showcases dozens of innovative products. Recycled newspaper went into its wall panels, shelving and insulation; light bulbs […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Drought for the Northwest
Although snowpack levels throughout the West are average or better this year, the Northwest faces another year of drought. As of mid-May, the water content in Washington’s and Oregon’s snowpack was between 20 and 59 percent of normal, while precipitation in the Snake River Basin averaged just half of normal. Low reservoir levels and trickling […]