[Utah] Off-road activist says he’s tossed in the towel

Off-road activist [Huck] says he’s tossed in the towel. He declares, after ruling, he’ll no longer fight wilderness designations. By Patty Henetz. (link expired) The Salt Lake Tribune. Note the SLT link died, but a found an active link at an off-road activist site.

“It’s like battling the Borg: Resistance is futile,” Huck said during a phone call from Blue Notch, a desert region near Lake Powell’s Hite Marina where he was dirt-biking with his family. “We might as well just designate all of Utah wilderness now and get it over with.”

Fire, Water and Political Leadership in the West

In the view of Joan McCarter the problems of drought, lack of water for “traditional” uses and the fires have been aided and abetted by years of short-sighted political leadership in the West.

She doesn need to say it, but Idaho has got to be a prime example.

Fire, Water and Political Leadership in the West. By Joan McCarter. New West

House Natural Resources Committee passes a major reform of the 1872 general mining law

Groups have been trying to reform this for a couple generations. Bush has said he will veto it.

House panel OKs bill imposing mining royalties. By Noelle Straub. Billings Gazette Washington Bureau

Instead of the old nearly free mining clam/patent system, mining operations would have to pay a royalty on “hard rock minerals” like gold, silver, lead, zinc, etc. like they currently do on gas and oil, coal, etc.

For the first time the 1872 mining law would not trump all other land uses.

More Nevada gold mines spew more toxic mercury than they reported

More Nevada gold mines spew more toxic mercury than they reported. By Rocky Barker. Idaho Statesman.

Three years ago hardly anyone thought of this, but the fact is southern Idaho waters and part of Utah too is being poisoned by the emissions from the rapidly growing number of open pit gold mines in Nevada.

Recent studies have also shown that forest and range fires emit a lot of highly toxic mercury. It isn’t a natural component of vegetation, but combustion of deposits from industrial sources on the grass and trees. I wonder how much Nevada mercury was spread around the United States from the Nevada and Idaho range and forest fires this last summer?

Yellowstone Park objects to proposed 115-foot cell tower just outside north entrance at Gardiner

Alltel Corporation wants to build a giant cell tower at the Rocky Mountain Campground, a private campground in Gardiner.

Story. Yellowstone administrators object to Gardiner cell tower. Associated Press