COLORADO All along the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies, development continues to roll out like freshly laid sod. Five years ago, in an effort to limit sprawl, a voluntary association of business leaders, developers and elected officials from 48 local governments drew up a plan that included an urban growth boundary. But the growth […]
Erika Trautman
Posted inMay 13, 2002: Beyond ecology: Restoring a cultural landscape
New hope for abandoned mines
Touch polluted water and it’s yours forever – or at least the liability is. All across the West, well-meaning citizens have shied away from cleaning up abandoned hardrock mines and their polluted streams for fear they could be held responsible under the Clean Water Act. Now, U.S. Reps. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Bob Schaffer, R-Colo., […]
Posted inApril 15, 2002: Raising a stink
For the love of spoons
What does frilly Victorian flatware have to do with Navajo silversmithing? More than you might imagine. In her new book, Navajo Spoons, Cindra Kline uncovers the unlikely convergence of Victorian America’s obsession for commemorative spoons, love of tourism, and the “classic period” of Navajo silversmithing. In the late 1800s, when the railroad reached the West, […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
How to handle the big cats
It’s a typical, sunny Western day, and you’re outside gardening when you notice a big cat eyeing you intently and slinking slowly towards you. What should you do? Don’t act defenseless, says Jon Rachael, regional wildlife manager in Idaho. “Almost invariably, mountain lions attack for food, so if you play dead, that only makes the […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Boy Scouts want new digs
COLORADO The Boy Scouts, with their image as resourceful, courteous, “leave no trace” outdoorsmen, seem an unlikely focal point for an environmental controversy over public land use. But that is where the Western Colorado Council of the Boy Scouts of America has found itself since proposing a new Boy Scout camp in the White River […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Gaining ground for the buffalo
The prophecy of the return of the American buffalo to the Great Plains has lingered like a whisper among Plains tribes since the emergence of the Ghost Dance in 1880. In the past few years, the Great Plains Restoration Council, a group whose aim is to repair vast tracts of prairie ecosystems for free-ranging buffalo, […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Will listing hurt the Colorado lynx?
Broad federal plan may leave Southern Rockies population out in the cold
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
A price tag for protest
OREGON Sitting in trees to save them may become a costly pastime, if the Oregon Department of Forestry has its way. Since August, protesters have prevented logging in the Tillamook State Forest by occupying platforms in the boughs of giant trees, and the department is considering an unusual method to deal with them: charging protesters […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Audible biodiversity
The first few tracks of The Diversity of Animal Sounds take me from the enthusiastic song of a male satin bowerbird in Australia to the deep-toned, primordial growls of the American alligator to the unabashed mating grunts of a jaguar. I am amused, and then deliciously frightened, and finally, slightly embarrassed – I keep the […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
The Buffalo War: a maelstrom of Western issues
If there were one emblem of Western history, it might be the American buffalo. In Matthew Testa’s new documentary, The Buffalo War, that emblem becomes the focal point for an impassioned controversy. “The buffalo provide a mirror,” says Testa. “They reflect how we see ourselves and our place in wilderness. And that reflection is incredibly […]
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Cooperating on the Valles Caldera
A public preserve in New Mexico puts its trust in trustees
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Savage controversy peacefully resolved
OREGON After a decade of political discord and legal brawls with conservationists, an Oregon irrigation district has agreed to breach the Savage Rapids Dam (HCN, 6/22/98: Locals stand behind an aging dam). The dam’s sole function is to provide irrigation water from the Rogue River to local farmers, but according to federal agencies, it kills […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Navajo-Hopi dispute persists
ARIZONA In early September, the roar of bulldozers and chainsaws in the remote desert of the Hopi Reservation gave modern resonance to an ancient feud. Hopi officials destroyed a site sacred to Navajo Sun Dancers, even removing the site’s “Tree of Life.” The act was the latest in more than a century of dispute over […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Curriculum for a desert classroom
Nearly a decade ago, Christine Beekman of the National Park Service stepped outside of the visitor center classroom and into the desert of southeast Utah, leading a boisterous third-grade class into a maze of sandstone formations. She organized a game designed to teach the students about predator-prey relations in ecosystems, dividing the kids into groups […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Monument of tall trees will stand
CALIFORNIA In late September, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., rejected a challenge to the newly designated Giant Sequoia National Monument in the southern Sierra Nevada. The monument protects 330,000 acres of forest ecosystem, including nearly half of the world’s remaining giant sequoia groves. Timber and off-highway vehicle groups, as well as Tulare County, where […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Power plant creates noisy dispute
IDAHO Sparks are flying over a proposed power plant in southeastern Idaho’s rural Canyon County. Ida-West Energy Company says it must build the plant in order to fill a projected deficit in its southern Idaho service area of 250 megawatts by 2004. But first the plant needs a county permit. Ida-West officials say the permit […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
ESA didn’t kill firefighters
WASHINGTON As flames sped through Okanogan National Forest on July 10, ground dispatchers delayed a helicopter water-drop because they were unsure whether siphoning water from the Chewuch River would violate the Endangered Species Act. That afternoon, four firefighters died (HCN, 7/30/01: Tragedy re-ignites wildfire debate). But an investigative report, released on Sept. 26 by the […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Grassfires burn bigger
In Montana’s Gallatin National Forest this past summer, rays of sunshine filtered through pine trees, diffusing in the smoky haze produced by ravenous flames. While such scenes make for alluring photographs and dramatic headlines, a new study says that wildfires in national forests account for less than 15 percent of acreage burned this year to […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Remembering internment in Idaho
For just over three years, between August 1942 and October 1945, more than 10,000 Japanese Americans were unwilling residents of the Minidoka War Relocation Authority Center in southern Idaho (HCN, 10/8/01: Lessons of an intolerant past). This fall, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts will host Whispered Silences, a multidisciplinary exploration of internment in […]
Posted inOctober 8, 2001: Whoa! Canada!
The smog is lifting
COLORADO Ask any Denver resident stuck in rush-hour traffic about growth along Colorado’s Front Range, and you may unleash a frustrated tirade. But despite all the new vehicles idling on the highways, Denver residents are breathing cleaner air than they were 20 years ago. In the late 1970s, Denver violated federal health standards for three […]