GIVE US A MEANINGFUL, VETO-PROOF BILL
Tester, Take the Lead on Mining Law
Last November, I wrote about mining law reform being a no brainer and that the U.S. House of Representatives had just passed a bill spiking the most uncivilized sections of the 135-year-old law. The House bill ends the archaic policy of giving way our public land to mining conglomerates with billions in assets and actually makes them pay royalties for taking public resources, like everybody else does.
Now, the Senate is working on its version of mining law reform, and newly elected Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) is in a position to be the leader in correcting a century-old injustice and getting the Mining Law of 1872 off the books.
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New West Book Review
Desert Solitude: Amy Irvine’s “Trespass”
Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land
By Amy Irvine
North Point Press
361 pages, $25
Utah native Amy Irvine's first book Trespass: Living At The Edge of The Promised Land is an unusual hybrid that combines memoir, natural history, Western history, anthropology, and an examination of the Mormon religion. Irvine, who now lives in Colorado, writes with authority about all of these subjects, though sometimes the transitions between so many topics within a particular chapter can be dizzying. Luckily, her clear, detailed prose will help ground readers as they try to keep up with the leaps of her fertile mind.
Irvine will appear tonight in Park City at Dolly's Bookstore (6 p.m.), March 1 in Moab at Back of Beyond Books (7 p.m.), March 8 in Santa Fe at Garcia Street Books (4:30 p.m.), and March 18 in Denver at the LoDo Tattered Cover (7:30 p.m.), as well as in other regional bookstores.
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WILL STATE MANAGEMENT PLANS WORK?
Coming Soon to a State Near You, Giant German Shepherd Hunting
This week, thirteen years since reintroduction into the northern Rockies, the federal government says the Big Dog, the wolf, is no longer an endangered species, which means the state wildlife agencies take over wolf management. The state agencies are already in the starting blocks to give us something we've never, ever had here in the New West, regulated sport hunting for wolves.
Regardless of the agency readiness, though, wolf managers expect delays as conservation groups drag delisting through the court system. But regardless when seasons open, will sport hunting accomplish the goal of reducing wolf numbers to target levels?
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Western Book Roundup
One Book, One Everywhere: Community Reads in the West
In recent years, many towns throughout the Rocky Mountain region have launched community reading programs, designed to unite as many people as possible in reading and discussing the same book. There's One Book, One Montana, which chose The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe in 2007, One Book Billings, which has selected Waking Lazarus by T. L. Hines for 2008, and Salt Lake's SLC Reads Together, which is featuring Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner this winter. According to the Library of Congress, every state in the Rocky Mountain region has initiated these reading programs, although some have been more successful and long-lived than others.
Rocky Mountain News Books Editor Patti Thorn recently gave some thoughtful and extensive suggestions for improving the One Book, One Denver program, and I recently spoke with Kent Haruf about community reading programs.
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LOADED FOR POLITICS, NOT BEARS OR CRIMINALS
More Guns in National Parks
You've probably heard about pending legislation to allow visitors to our national parks to carry loaded and accessible firearms. The cover story is the concern that people must be able to protect their families from perverts and wild animals infesting out national parks.
To this overused assertion, I must ask why doesn't the gun lobby get out front with the real reason it does these things?
Footnote: Click here to read more NewWest.Net articles on the NRA.
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WILL THE FWP COMMISSION STAND UP FOR HUNTERS?
Let Bowhunters Solve “Deer Problem”
In January, I posted a column about the most expensive deer in the world, which happen to be running around my house in Helena, Montana. I concluded, conservatively, that killing these deer might cost $2,000 or more per animal. Out of the comment section came the question: What would be a more cost-effective option?
Since then, I've been checking around on what's happening in other cities, and I have the answer.
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Power to the People
Energy Expansion Across the West
Resort communities require a lot of kilowatts, and bustling Big Sky, Montana is no exception to this rule; between 1996 and 2005 there were 660 new residential units built in Big Sky – a dramatic 8.2 percent increase. And this does not include the Moonlight Basin and Yellowstone Club ski resorts.
In order to meet the energy needs of Big Sky, Northwestern Energy is planning to upgrade the existing 69-kV power line from Four Corners to Big Sky with a 161-kV line. Northwestern is also seeking to bypass state and public review through right-of-way agreements with private landowners to build the 35-mile, $20-$30 million line.
In order to serve a slightly larger growing population, the West Wide Energy Corridor federal plan is buzzing right along with a public comment period closing on Thursday, February 14, 2008. The corridor could affect nearly 3 million acres in 11 Western states.
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WHY NOT?
Bowhunting Helena
All across the nation, bowhunters help cities control urban deer herds, but whenever the subject comes up, it's followed by a lot of questions on safety, costs, legalities and logistics. To answer some of these questions, I browsed the web for a few hours and then called three cities that effectively, inexpensively and safely keep deer populations in check with bowhunting.
Doubters beware. I couldn't come up with a single reason why bowhunters couldn't safely and inexpensively solve the "deer problem" in Helena, Montana, nor why bow hunts wouldn't work in other cities in the New West.
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warren's world
Snowboarding, and the Golden Rule
More than 30 years ago, one of my photographers returned from Alta, Utah, with what was then some never-before-seen images on movie film.
My cameraman told me that the men doing whatever they were doing were riding on some new homemade thing they called a “snowboard.” The only problem was, that they could only make one turn before they crashed in the deep Utah powder. Fortunately the cameraman got enough single turns on film for our editors to glue it together in a sequence that looked like everyone was making continuous turns. When one of the men in the movie phoned to see how the sequence turned out, I only had one comment, “I might suggest that you invent bindings for those things you are riding on.”
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Introducing...
A New Magazine: The New West
The best way to check out The New West magazine is to subscribe. We want to know who’s interested in The New West, so we have made the magazine available free to qualified subscribers who answer a short questionnaire.
In the Spring Issue and online here:
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- Montana’s Cash Cowboy
- Real Ranch Living: Not Everyone is Selling Out
- Essay: The Family Farm, Version 2.0
- Essay: Tracks Across A Landscape
- Have Your Ranch & Develop It, Too
- Design Showcase: The Big and Little of Western Building
- Stuff It: Can Wolf Hunting Help Conserve the Species?
- Traffic Perplexes New Western Communities
- Boise in Its Own Little Bubble
- Revenge of the Resource Economy
- Spotlight North Idaho: On the Agenda: Youth, Growth & Silver
- Spotlight North Idaho: Players of the Panhandle
- Spotlight North Idaho: Coeur d’Alene Tribe Rides the Idaho Boom
