The Forest Service and BLM embark on revising the iconic plan and may allow more logging.
Paul Koberstein
BPA scapegoats fish to protect fat cats
The Bonneville Power Administration says it can’t afford to save Columbia River salmon anymore. The eight senators in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana agree. They have asked governors in their states to help write a new law effectively capping the BPA’s fish costs. Not that the BPA’s fish programs have worked. Numerous runs have gone […]
BuRec to allow water thefts to continue
A crackdown against illegal use of federal water from dams in the West won’t take place anytime soon (HCN, 10/31/94). That’s because a long-awaited plan for curbing abuses is being shelved by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Under pressure from farm irrigators, the BuRec has begun work on what some observers predict will be a […]
Water for the taking
Some irrigators get loose with the law
Who’s who in water spreading
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Water for the taking. WaterWatch, based in Portland, is one of the nation’s first statewide groups focused solely on water quantity, rather than water quality. It has filed legal challenges to Oregon’s system of issuing water-use permits, which, says founder Tom Simmons, has turned […]
Oregon paper clearcuts a tough reporter
When newsroom staffers at the Portland Oregonian arrived at work Aug. 8, they found the empty desk of Kathie Durbin, the paper’s lead environmental reporter since 1989. The only thing remaining on her desk was the new book Clearcut, which Durbin left behind as a cryptic metaphor to what happened to her. Durbin had resigned, […]
… and invoked for salmon, against grazing
In the battle to save the northern spotted owl, environmental groups have brandished the Endangered Species Act as a sword to halt logging. Now they are using the controversial law against grazing, for the sake of another threatened species – Snake River chinook salmon. In July, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco […]
A doomed species?
Spotted owl may be losing its long fight for survival
Northwest forests hit by new lawsuits
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, A doomed species? The fate of Northwest forests has been tied up in the courts since 1987, when the Portland Audubon Society sued the government for failing to address the possible extinction of the northern spotted owl. Although the suit was later thrown out of […]
Groups are wary of aluminum companies bearing gifts
Are Northwest aluminum companies, intent on diverting attention from salmon-killing dams, offering bribes to environmental groups to join frivolous suits against the fishing industry? Some environmentalists think so. Last spring, aluminum companies filed a federal suit to block commercial fishing in the lower Columbia River, claiming the fishing was wiping out too many threatened chinook […]
Ideological schism leads to a personal feud
Randal O’Toole and Jeffrey St. Clair aren’t exactly household names. But tree-huggers know the pair as former publisher and editor of Forest Watch, a now-defunct national monthly. It folded last August after a decade covering the West’s national forests. Forest Watch had been an especially reliable source of information on the crisis in the Northwest […]
Damnable dams
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Northwest is asked to give up 18 dams. The Oregon Natural Resources Council makes the case for eliminating 13 finished, one unfinished and four proposed dams. Historically, questions about dams have been limited to where dams should be built, but now the […]
Northwest is asked to give up 18 dams
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has said he wants to blow up a dam. Andy Kerr of the Oregon Natural Resources Council aims higher: He wants 18 dams destroyed across Oregon, Idaho and Washington – a drastic measure intended to save salmon runs now teetering on the edge of extinction. “Many people believe dams are engineering […]
Clinton’s forest plan draws 83,000 responses
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Clinton’s forest plan draws 83,000 responses.
The decline and fall of salmon
Logging, hydropower and fishing contribute to the decline of salmon in Oregon waters. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The decline and fall of salmon.
Groups blast recovery plan for four salmon runs
A Snake River Chinook Recovery Team plan to truck salmon downstream does more to protect hydropower than fish, critics say. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Groups blast recovery plan for four salmon runs.
Western governers want help
Governors from Idaho, Washington, California and Oregon ask the President to design a strategy to restore declining salmon runs. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Western governers want help.
Foundation seeks to change Northwest
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Foundation seeks to change Northwest.
Support drops for Clinton’s timber plan
Alexander Cockburn’s article in The Nation harshly criticizes Clinton’s forest plan and the Sierra Club for going along with it. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Support drops for Clinton’s timber plan.
Clinton vs. Foley
As President Clinton unveils his plan for protecting the old trees and declining species in Northwest forests, he disturbed a big bear on the trail: Democrat Thomas S. Foley, the longtime congressman from Washington state. To read this article, download this HCN issue in PDF format. This article appeared in the print edition of the […]