New West Feature

Death by Suicide: Exposing the Soft, White Underbelly of the West

I attended my first funeral at the age of 15. It was for my friend and teammate who passed away in the spring of 1977 due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He just turned 16.

This was my first experience dealing with the death of someone with whom I was close. I couldn’t get my mind around the fact he was gone.  We wouldn’t be taking cheap shots at one another during football practice the next fall. We wouldn’t be shot-gunning beers stolen out of his dad’s garage fridge. We wouldn’t be grab-assing in the halls or lying to each other about all the girls from other schools.

He was gone, stuck in time as a standout high school half-back and all around good dude. After 33 years, I still feel the initial shock and emotional devastation when I dwell on it too long.

There were no warning signs, no telltale “I-should-have-seen-it-coming” behavior. I remember the last thing I said to him as we walked out to the parking lot after school like it was yesterday, “Let’s get shit-faced this weekend.” He yelled back over his shoulder, “Sounds good, call me.”

He died that night.

I wish I could say this was an isolated incident: Chalk it up to teenage angst and blame the mental health community for letting one rare case fall through the cracks. But I know better.

Guest Column

Obama’s Outdoors Initiative Offers a Chance to Protect Farms

Regrettably, the farmlands I grew up appreciating are under assault. Every minute of every day, America loses an acre of farmland . Nearly 1 million acres of farm and ranch land in this country are lost each year. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, more than 4 million acres of active agricultural land were developed—an area nearly the size of the state of Massachusetts!

The “America’s Great Outdoors” initiative is a federal effort designed to help reconnect Americans with our natural resources and renew our commitment to preserving them for future generations. The national conversation it inspires can be vital to preserving agriculture for the health of our families, economy and environment.

The federal government can be an active partner and contributor to the efforts of private landowners, states and communities to secure and manage this resource for future generations. We welcome the leadership of President Obama, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to raise public awareness about the value of our working farms and ranches. Along with their support and public funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, farm bill conservation and other partnership programs that protect our land and water, we can help to sustain an important part of all of our lives. 

Guest Opinion

Taxpayers Can’t Afford to Wait for Mining Law Reform

Even with Americans worrying about record budget deficits and struggling through recession, the mining industry is exploiting an antiquated federal law to fleece taxpayers as it makes enormous profits off public lands.

Federal law governing hardrock mining – a legislative relic unchanged since President Ulysses S. Grant signed it in 1872 – lets mining companies buy public land for next to nothing, take the public’s buried treasure without paying a cent in royalties and then stick the public with staggering bills for the pollution and other environmental problems left behind.

As NBC Nightly News recently highlighted in its “Fleecing of America” series, the 1872 General Mining Law gives federal land away for $5 an acre or less and exempts multinational corporations from paying taxes for the minerals they take. Miners get rich while handing taxpayers an estimated $50 billion bill to restore lands and watersheds devastated by mining.

Congress wrote the mining law 138 years ago to encourage pick-and-shovel prospectors to strike out for the unsettled West. Unchanged, the law now grants even foreign mining companies priority over other land uses, making it nearly impossible to limit mining in critical areas, regardless of harm to habitat, water supplies and other natural resources.

Guest Opinion: Wolves

Montana, Idaho and Wyoming Wolf Policies Foreshadow Extinction

Recently concluded public wolf-hunting seasons along with federal predator-control killings resulted in the shootings of over 500 gray wolves in Montana and Idaho, leaving the combined wolf population in those two states and Wyoming at around 1,700 animals, close to what it was last year.  Under state management future wolf mortality can be expected to climb significantly unless last April’s removal of wolves from the endangered species list is overturned in federal court and federal protections are restored.

According to the wolf delisting rule that was promulgated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and is challenged in court by the Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation organizations represented by Earthjustice, the states of Idaho and Montana may reduce wolf numbers to 100-150 individual animals in each state.  Idaho has been particularly adamant that it intends to drive wolf numbers as low as possible.  Montana’s open-ended authorization of predator-control actions will subject wolves to almost unlimited persecution.  Wyoming’s wolves, also subject to federal killing, are still on the endangered species list and thus not yet publicly hunted – but when delisting finally occurs in Wyoming, it too will be authorized to eliminate all but 100-150 wolves.

Guest Opinion

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Shouldn’t Dismiss Hard Work of Citizens’ Committee

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) is committing an egregious act of public dishonor.  I’m talking about FWP policymakers, not the hard-working, dedicated rangers and wardens with boots on the ground.  Strong criticism for sure, but nonetheless well-earned.

Nearly 2 ½ years ago, FWP and Governor Schweitzer created a citizen advisory committee, River Recreation Advisory For Tomorrow (RRAFT), with the mission of developing the long-awaited Blackfoot River Recreation Management Plan. “Long-awaited” certainly applies, as this has been under development since the 1970s.

Over the decades, our legendary Blackfoot River has seen a steady increase in recreational use along its entire length.  Damage to this pristine, unique waterway has increased at a similar pace. RRAFT’s goal was to recommend new rules and regulations to stem the damage and to protect and restore this national gem.

The RRAFT committee held over 30 meetings during its tenure, expending 2,000 man hours of volunteer effort discussing and debating the many issues and defining the best solutions to the growing problems. In spring 2009 we issued our draft plan that incorporated a detailed set of new recommended regulations.
FWP, after some in-house editing, produced a watered down version of the draft plan this past fall. They held three public hearings and received public comment, concluding in November 2009.

guest column

Colorado Roadless Rule Continues to Fall Short

On April 6, Governor Bill Ritter released new recommendations for the proposed Colorado roadless rule, the state-promoted document that could govern management of more than 4 million acres of national forest roadless lands in Colorado. While the governor’s petition includes some improvements from previous drafts of the rule, persistent and fundamental problems exist in the current version – problems that fail to adequately conserve some of the finest big-game and wild trout habitat in the nation.

Those of us who value our nation’s public lands, the economic benefits they foster and the unmatched recreational opportunities they provide remain concerned about underlying deficiencies in the proposed Colorado roadless rule. One of the most problematic is a basic lack of commitment by the state to maintain roadless area characteristics throughout Colorado’s backcountry. Other problems include unjustified provisions for power-line corridors and aggressive timber harvesting located deep in the backcountry – projects that could compromise valuable fish and wildlife habitat. Such proposals strongly suggest that important work remains to be done before the Colorado rule would appropriately secure roadless area values. Colorado Roadless Rule Continues to Fall Short

NPR, Public Goods, and the Longing for NQR

National Public Radio (NPR), a nonprofit 501 c-3 corporation, has 860 independent stations throughout America. I wouldn’t care to live in a place that didn’t have radio access. (Streaming it on the web is a poor substitute.) When traveling, I find the local station so not to miss “Morning Edition” and the evening program “All Things Considered.”

While I’m obviously a loyal listener, their biannual weeklong fund drives are things to endure. One suffers through them as a necessary nuisance, much like Montana’s spring mud season.

During the 30-plus years I taught university courses in political economy, NPR was one of my favorite examples of a “public good.” Like national defense, it is something that, if provided to anyone, is available to everyone. So, of course, are all radio stations. The difference is that explicit advertising for specific products supports commercial radio. NPR, in contrast, has mercifully brief underwriting. This source provides just over one-fifth of its revenue. Governments, mainly federal, provide 16 percent.

With Wolves, It’s Time to Separate Fact From Fiction

Never let facts get in the way of some good hysteria.

That seems to be the mantra of the fringe anti-wolf crowd as it once again seizes on the iconic animal’s imagined evils in yet another attempt to revisit the futile notion of a second extermination.

Pick up a newspaper in any part of Montana, Idaho or Wyoming these days and there’s a fair chance you’ll read a screed about the latest reasons why the big, bad wolf should be banished: 

Column: Along the Frontier

Do We Care Less? Polls Show Decline in Concern for the Environment

As we approach the 40th anniversary of the original Earth Day, two new polls, as well as one recent report, raise important alarm bells about our attitudes toward nature and should, by extension, influence a new mission statement for the next ‘New West.’

The first poll is Gallup’s annual update on American feelings toward the environment. The news is sobering. According to Gallup, national concern continues a steady decline and has reached a point where “Americans are now less worried about a series of environmental problems than at any time in the past 20 years.”

On six of eight specific environmental problems, concern is the lowest Gallup has ever measured. Americans worry most about drinking-water pollution and least about global warming. On the latter, the poll shows that the public has become less worried about the threat of global warming over the last two years. Citizens are “less convinced that its effects are already happening,” says Gallup, “and more likely to believe that scientists themselves are uncertain about its occurrence.”