CROSSING TO SAFETY By Ben Goldfarb
Vol. 52 / January 2020 From coal Washington’s Farmworker No. 1 • hcn.org to solar housing crunch strategy EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PUBLISHER Paul Larmer EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brian Calvert ART DIRECTOR Cindy Wehling DIGITAL EDITOR Gretchen King ASSOCIATE EDITORS Tristan Ahtone, Emily Benson, Paige Blankenbuehler, Maya L. Kapoor ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Luna Anna Archey ASSISTANT EDITORS Jessica Kutz, Carl Segerstrom, Anna V. Smith EDITOR AT LARGE Betsy Marston COPY EDITOR IMAGE Diane Sylvain CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Graham Brewer, Elena Saavedra Buckley, Ruxandra Guidi, Michelle Nijhuis, McKenna Stayner, Jonathan Thompson CORRESPONDENTS Leah Sottile, Sarah Tory EDITORIAL FELLOWS Nick Bowlin, Kalen Goodluck, Helen Santoro DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Laurie Milford MAJOR GIFT ADVISER Alyssa Pinkerton DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE Hannah Stevens DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANTS Carol Newman, Terra Hegy SENIOR MARKETER JoAnn Kalenak Mark Gocke / Mountain goats bring traffic to a halt on Wyoming Highway 89 in the Snake River Canyon near Alpine. At least three EVENTS & BUSINESS PARTNER mountain goats have been hit and killed in this area so far this winter. COORDINATOR Laura Dixon IT MANAGER Alan Wells DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Erica Howard ACCOUNTS ASSISTANT Mary Zachman CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Kathy Martinez CUSTOMER SERVICE Amanda Campbell, Karen Howe, Josh McIntire (IT support), Mark Nydell, Doris Teel, Tammy York GRANT WRITER Janet Reasoner FOUNDER Tom Bell BOARD OF DIRECTORS Brian Beitner (Colo.), John Belkin (Colo.) Seth Cothrun (Calif.), Jay Dean (Calif.), Bob Fulkerson (Nev.), Wayne Hare (Colo.), Laura Helmuth (Md.), Samaria Jaffe (Calif.), Nicole Lampe (Ore.), Marla Painter (N.M.), Bryan Pollard (Ark.), Raynelle Rino (Calif.), Estee Rivera Murdock (Colo.), Rick Tallman (Colo.), Andy Wiessner (Colo.), Florence Williams (D.C.) High Country News is a nonprofit 501(c)3 independent media organization that covers the important issues and stories that define DIRECTOR EMERITUS the American West. Our mission is to inform and inspire people – through in-depth journalism – to act on behalf of the West’s diverse Luis Torres (N.M.) natural and human communities. (ISSN/0191/5657) is published monthly, 16 times a year, by High Country News, 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, CO 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to High Country News, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: 800-905-1155 | hcn.org
2 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS EDITOR’S NOTE FEATURED WRITERS
Ben Goldfarb Spokane, Washington @ben_a_goldfarb
Tristan Ahtone Fort Worth, Texas @tahtone
Tripp J Crouse Anchorage, Alaska @trippjcrouse A fresh start for 2020
WITH THE NEW YEAR COMES A NEW LOOK FOR High Country News! We’re pleased to offer Nick Bowlin you the first issue of our revamped magazine, in which you’ll find the rich and nuanced reporting Gunnison, Colorado @npbowlin and analysis you’ve come to expect from us, now bolstered by a reimagined design and new vision for the future. Our editor-in-chief explains the issue’s new features on page 25.
One thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to exploring the deep tensions that crisscross the West like so many roads. In this issue’s cover story, that metaphor becomes a reality, as a fight over Helen Santoro how best to help elk, deer and other wildlife cross a stretch of highway in Idaho opens big questions Gunnison, Colorado @helenwsantoro on land management.
As writer Ben Goldfarb details, wildlife crossings have become a popular way to keep car-creature collisions in check and allow animals to travel through landscapes otherwise fractured by pavement. Carl Segerstrom But a plan to build three such bridges over Targhee Pass, at the edge of Island Park, Idaho, ran into a Spokane, Washington @carlschirps different kind of fault line: a distrust of outsiders and a desire to exact local control over public lands.
In Island Park, different groups of people connected the same dots in vastly different ways, at times drawing connections that, to others, veered into absurdity. Tracing how they came to those conclu- sions won’t lead to agreement, of course, but it might lead to a deeper understanding of — and empathy Jonathan Thompson for — the myriad individuals who call the West home. Sofia, Bulgaria @jonnypeace
Elsewhere in this issue, we interview United Farm Workers Secretary Treasurer Armando Elenes on the importance of union organizing and compromise. We also review the film The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw, an entertaining coming-of-age story centered on a young Indigenous woman in Canada, and check in on the promise of one of our nation’s bedrock environmental laws, the National Sarah Tory Environmental Policy Act, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Carbondale, Colorado @tory_sarah
High Country News is celebrating the very same milestone this year. And five decades of chronicling the complexities of the American West have left us with one conclusion: From the highways of Idaho to the fields of California, there are always more stories to be told from this fascinating place.
Emily Benson, associate editor
High Country News covers the important issues and stories that are unique to the American West with a magazine and a website, hcn.org. For editorial comments or questions, write High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or [email protected], or call 970-527-4898.
JANUARY 2020 3 IMAGE
TOMO / A tourist takes a selfie at the Stockyards in Fort Worth, Texas. (above) FEATURES Luna Anna Archey / High Country News / Students adjust a tilt-mount solar array. The adjustable array is one of three that a solar class has constructed outside of Delta High School in Where ‘the West’ Begins 14 Delta, Colorado. (right)
Forth Worth, Texas, cashes in on selective history.
BY TRISTAN AHTONE | PHOTOS BY TOMO
ON THE COVER Paul Queneau / A white-tailed buck is backlit by headlights moments before it dashes across rush-hour traffic on Hillview Crossing to Safety Way in Missoula, Montana. Deer are frequently hit along 28 this busy street as it bisects two islands of open space amid How a fight over roadkill turned into growing neighborhoods. During 2016 renovations to this key arterial, the city installed streetlights in part to help traffic a referendum on government control. spot wildlife, as well as a pedestrian/wildlife underpass at Moose Can Gully. That narrow tunnel of concrete, though, BY BEN GOLDFARB isn’t used very often by deer. Soon they won’t have as much incentive to cross; in November, the city approved construction of 68 townhouses which will cover most of the grassy meadow below Hillview.
4 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REPORTAGE Raised voices 12
Young Indigenous activists join An array of hopes 8 a growing chorus for climate justice. Where coal mines once provided steady employment, solar energy now offers jobs for the next generation. BY TRIPP J CROUSE
BY NICK BOWLIN
A call on the Clark Fork 19
As subdivisions spread, it’s becoming harder to manage Montana’s water.
BY HELEN SANTORO
IMAGE Waste not, want not 20
Nuclear power is emissions-free, but at what cost?
BY JONATHAN THOMPSON
‘Why are you doing this?’ 22
One family’s ordeal under Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration tactics.
BY SARAH TORY
Rent control 10 Visas for shepherds 11
Can a growing city keep its people Under a new settlement, housed? ranchers will no longer be able to use temporary or seasonal visas BY CARL SEGERSTROM to fill labor needs.
BY KALEN GOODLUCK
Access to subscriber-only content: hcn.org hcne.ws/digi-5201
Follow us @highcountrynews
JANUARY 2020 5 REFLECTION & REVIEW
West of Al-Maghrib 45
In Laila Lalami’s ‘The Other Americans,’ a Moroccan-American family seeks a sense of belonging in California.
BY ALEX TRIMBLE YOUNG
Chris Goldberg / CC via Flickr / The town of Yucca Valley, California, in the Mojave Desert. In Lalami’s novel, the town is the scene of a suspicious hit-and-run accident. DEPARTMENTS
Worse for wear 40 The strategist 42 3 EDITOR’S NOTE What the cowboy hat says about Armando Elenes is quietly 7 LETTERS ‘Americanism.’ organizing a new wave of farmworkers. 8 WHAT WORKS BY BRIAN CALVERT BY NICK BOWLIN 11 THE LATEST
20 FACTS AND FIGURES
25 ON THE ROAD TO 50 Where NEPA fell short 41 The fascinating 44 26 DONORS Mitzi Bearclaw A look back at the 27 DEAR FRIENDS ground-breaking legislation Mohawk director Shelley Niro on its 50th anniversary. crafts an entertaining tale about 40 WEST OBSESSED a millennial Indigenous woman BY ADAM M. SOWARDS returning home. 46 HEARD AROUND THE WEST BY JASON ASENAP 48 #iamthewest
6 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS LETTERS TWITTER EMAIL This profile of Markwayne Mullin In “Is Renewable Energy’s Future (“A Cherokee for Trump,” 12/9/19) Dammed?” (11/25/19) Nick Bowlin by Graham Lee Brewer is an incred- asks an important question, but ible piece, and yet another example fails to mention some critical from High Country News as to why facts that we need to weigh when it’s crucial for Native reporters and thinking about future hydro- editors to be hired to cover their power projects. According to High Country News is dedicated to independent own communities. the National Inventory of Dams, journalism, informed debate and discourse in the Nick Martin maintained by the Army Corps public interest. We welcome letters through digital of Engineers, there are 91,468 media and the post. Send us a letter, find us on social, EMAIL dams in the United States — the or email us at [email protected]. Jonathan Thompson aptly calls equivalent of having built more out Bureau of Land Manage- than one per day since Thomas ment Acting Director William Jefferson was president. Only 3% Perry Pendley’s big lie about the of these dams produce electric- FACEBOOK FACEBOOK “existential threat” to public lands ity. Sure, some of the remaining Whether coal has been “good The folks who have been in (“BLM chief ’s wild horse fixation,” 97% that do not — 88,724 dams — to Wyoming” or not is pretty Wyoming for generations would 11/25/19). Sadly, Thompson goes might not support a hydropower debatable (“Coal state struggles,” probably prefer that the decisions on to refer to the estimated 88,000 retrofit, and others deserve to be 12/9/19). Much of the cleanup costs about Wyoming’s future were wild horses on public lands, stating considered for removal due to envi- will fall on the state’s taxpayers, left to them, rather than all the that their “hooves trample and lay ronmental and cultural impacts, and Wyoming doesn’t have much “wonderful schemes” those moving waste to big swaths of cryptobiotic risks to downstream communi- of a tax base as it is, much less after from other places have in mind. soil.” Whoa! ties, or simply because they’ve a large part of its income (and its (“Coal state struggles,” 12/9/19). The BLM relentlessly pushes exceeded their useful lifespan. But workers) leaves. Wyoming needs What they should do is charge an the notion that wild horses and with so many to choose from, it’s to reinvent itself. The enormous entrance fee for all the newcomers burros overpopulate and damage likely that many would fit the bill. amount of land taken up by mining and tourists. Western lands. Facts tell a differ- Let’s take a hard look at electrify- and other destructive extraction C. Ralph Allen ent story. Without environmental ing existing dams before we even would make ideal places to put review, the BLM has removed half consider building new hydropower solar and wind farms, resources TWITTER of the animals’ federally desig- projects on free-flowing segments that Wyoming has in abundance It never ends well when a whole nated habitat. The 88,000 horses of river. The fact that hydropower and that are literally inexhaust- local economy is based on nonre- now roam on 27 million acres — dams are incredibly damaging to ible! It’s not like it’s going to spoil newable natural resource (“Coal hardly the surging overpopulation the ecosystems that we depend people’s view out there or cause any state struggles,” 12/9/19). Commu- claimed by Department of Interior on is well-documented, and they ecological destruction. (Hardly!) nities all over the world want the publicists. In Europe, ecologists also happen to be very expensive My God, if Wyoming embraced jobs that mining brings, but then are re-wilding horses as a way of to build. It’s up to us to make sure both technologies with open arms their children or grandchildren restoring ecosystems and reducing that in the headlong rush to de-car- and invited in companies to take end up living through the burst of fire-prone vegetation. In the U.S., bonize energy sources of the future, advantage of those resources, it the bubble. the BLM is un-wilding lands that we also protect what we have in the could rival Texas’ envious solar Taal Levi are federally designated for these present. Better yet, let’s come up and wind programs, probably free-roaming animals. with an energy vision that also within a decade. For much of those FACEBOOK Wild horses and their advo- restores many of our damaged areas, the transmission lines for It couldn’t be that the Trans- cates have enough problems with and degraded ecosystems, start- power are already in place. In the continental Railroad opened up the BLM’s eradication scheme and ing with our rivers. Building more longer run, having those power thousands of square miles of land, discriminatory treatment. Having dams on free-flowing rivers is not sources — and the revenue taxes connecting it back to civilization the myths repeated by other ecol- the answer, but distributed resi- and employment they generate (“Gilded Age problems,” 12/9/19). ogists is not helpful. We share dential solar with battery storage — close at hand would aid greatly It couldn’t be that it was an engi- the same goals: healthy public just might be. in the funding of restoration of neering marvel of its time. Nor lands, protecting wolves and other Mike Fiebig Wyoming to its former beautiful could it have been an economic natural predators, strengthening self, which is something else that boom at the time. Nope, HCN just safeguards against pollution by makes a good jobs program. takes history and spins it so that, extractive industries, fighting the Andy Groz while wrong by today’s standards, efforts to gut the National Envi- it seems that all the U.S. has done ronmental Policy Act (NEPA), and is oppress and denigrate people. pushing for congressional oversight Pathetic. of this too often roguish agency. Richard Beauchamp Charlotte Roe
JANUARY 2020 7 WHAT WORKS SCIENCE TEACHER BEN GRAVES “The facilities folks at first waved started the class four years ago. it away as a class project,” Graves Described by a student as “cool” but said with a laugh. “Now, mainte- with a “mad-scientist vibe,” Graves nance sees it as a real way to reduce has a salt-and-pepper beard and demand charges. It went from us dresses casually in trail-running pushing some of this stuff on the shoes and hard-wearing khakis. In administration to them saying, ‘Wait class, he is affable but authoritative. a second, we actually want this.’ ” As a teacher, Graves sees his main The economics of renewables duty as educating young people are changing Delta at the county and creating good citizens. But to level, too. The area’s electric coop- An array of hopes do right by his students, he needs erative, Delta-Montrose Electric to set them up for success under the Association (DMEA) is ending its Where coal mines once provided steady employment, current economic realities. And that contract with its wholesale power solar energy now offers jobs for the next generation. requires classes like solar training. “I supplier, Tri-State Generation think we have to be doing some sort and Transmission Association. BY NICK BOWLIN of trades education,” he said. “For Tri-State long required that buyers a kid with a high school diploma, like DMEA purchase 95 % of their working service is really all you can electricity from the utility, limit- do without more training.” ing the amount of solar and other Many students in the solar class, renewables local co-ops could like Baty, weren’t particularly produce. The company is notorious successful in traditional science for its continued reliance on coal- classes. They’re kids who haven’t fired power plants. AT A PICNIC TABLE IN A DRY industry, which sustained the area “played the school game,” as For many Delta residents, solar grass field, a group of elemen- for more than 120 years. When the Graves put it, of college admission offers a certain self-sufficiency tary school students watched as mines still ran, graduating seniors and standardized tests. For these and local independence they high school senior Xavier Baty, a could step immediately into students, training in electrical find appealing, as evidenced by broad-shouldered 18-year-old in good-paying jobs. But in the past trades has now joined ranks with DMEA’s defection from corporate a camouflage ball cap and scuffed five years, two of Delta County’s welding and agriculture programs control. It’s also cheaper: DMEA work boots, attached a hand-sized three mines have closed. Approx- offered by the high school. can cut customer costs by increas- solar panel cell to a small motor imately 900 local mining jobs have In the past four years, the class ing its share of renewable power. connected to a fan. He held the been lost in the past decade. Ethan has helped install two solar arrays DMEA is a rural electric co-op, so panel to face the setting Colorado Bates, for example, another senior behind Delta High School. Students its members call the shots, and in sun, adjusting its angle to vary the in the solar energy training class, have done much of the work design- October 2018, they voted to raise fan speed. is the son of a mine foreman who ing the structures and digging the money and sell stocks in order to “Want to hear a secret?” he asked lost his job when the Bowie Mine trenches to lay conduit cables. This buy out their Tri-State contract. the kids around him. “This is the outside Paonia closed in 2016. Now, year for their final project, they Politically, Delta County might only science class I ever got an A in.” he’ll graduate as a certified solar will take apart and fully re-install not be an obvious leader in renew- As he readily acknowledges, panel installer. one of the solar arrays. According able energy; it voted for President Baty hasn’t been the most enthu- National environmental and to Graves, teachers at other local Donald Trump by about 70 %. But siastic science student at Delta climate groups often discuss “just schools are keen to integrate solar solar panels on homes and busi- High School. This class, however, transitions” for fossil-fuel depen- training into their classes. Solar nesses are increasingly common, is different. Along with a group of dent communities like Delta, or Energy International, or SEI, a with demand sometimes outstrip- other seniors and a few juniors, Baty Wyoming’s Powder River Basin. local nonprofit and a major catalyst ping the capacity of local solar is enrolled in “Solar Energy Train- Mining companies are going bank- behind the Delta class, is working to firms. ing.” The class not only provides rupt, while every year, solar and integrate solar training into science In the school district where a science credit needed for grad- other renewables get cheaper. Such curriculum across the region. Graves works, DMEA has encour- uation; it also trains students for economic shifts are complex, but These projects are a boon to aged the adoption of solar by fund- careers in solar energy or the elec- one thing is clear: If the transition public school budgets, which lost a ing solar arrays at every high school trical trades. It allows Baty to work to renewables is to truly account tax base when the mines closed. On in its service area. Through SEI, the with his hands, something he enjoys, for the communities and econo- a school day, the projects can supply co-op has administered grants for while positioning him for employ- mies it undercuts, it will include about 10% of Delta High School’s Graves’ class, and it funds solar train- ment in a fast-growing industry. programs like Delta High School’s energy demand — and up to 30% ings for teachers across the area. In Colorado’s North Fork Valley, solar training. The class positions on weekends. Thanks to a munic- solar energy — along with a strong young people for success in a coal- ipal cap, Graves said, the school FROM AN EDUCATIONAL VIEW, organic farm economy and recre- free future, and does so from the has reached the limit on how much the solar class’ value rests in its ation dollars — is helping to fill the ground up, attentive to the needs solar it can install, but even the capacity to combine technical train- economic hole left by the dying coal and cares of the local community. current amount makes a difference. ing and scientific learning outside
8 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Luna Anna Archey / High Country News / Ethan Bates and Cody Sauve adjust the wiring box on a solar array outside their Delta High School classroom.
the traditional grade structure. used by the tech lab’s computers. not try to teach during the dark days their efforts after the heartbreak but This dynamic was on full display In the hallways, every other light of mourning that followed; instead, came up short. It’s easier for smaller on a bright fall day in October. The fixture is dark, the bulbs removed he simply let the students talk and schools to show large energy-use class was participating in an energy by solar students. At a separate remember their friend. He contem- cuts, and Delta is the largest school reduction contest against other table, another group used the data plated calling off the competition, in the district. Students grumbled Delta County high schools. Spon- to calculate savings if the building’s but Hines had been one of the class’ about an unfair contest. (In Decem- sored by the Colorado Energy Office, sodium vapor bulbs were replaced more enthusiastic members. ber, though, the school was awarded the Renew Our Schools program by LED lights. Lights, the kids “We talked about whether to stop $2,000 by the state for their efforts. promotes student-run energy effi- found, account for about half of the or to keep going with the competi- The funds will help replace fluores- ciency projects. At the end of the school’s peak power demand. tion, and we decided to keep going cent bulbs with LEDs.) five-week competition, the winning All this activity halted when for Gannon,” said Allora McClellan, As the hour wound down toward school would receive $12,000. tragedy struck in early November. another senior. lunch, Graves watched a group of The contest transformed the Gannon Hines, a senior who hoped On the final day of the compe- students finish some final kilowatt kids from students to energy to use his solar skills upon gradu- tition, just before Thanksgiving, it calculations. A few were already auditors. Graves sent them out to ating, died in a car accident. Three was clear Delta was going to lose, drifting toward the door. prowl the hallways, counting light other students were in the car, and and some of the students were “Hey,” he said, “let’s finish our bulbs and measuring the energy one remains badly hurt. Graves did frustrated. They had redoubled work.”
JANUARY 2020 9 REPORTAGE
Rent control Can a growing city keep its people housed?
BY CARL SEGERSTROM
SPOKANE CITY COUNCILWOMAN KATE Burke knows what it’s like to get an eviction notice. When she was running for office in 2017, a real estate agent knocked on the door of the house she was renting and told her that it would soon be on the market; a week later, she got a letter telling her she had 20 days to move out. She hadn’t violated her lease terms or damaged the property, but in a city without tenant protections, that didn’t matter — she had to find a new place. Burke was luckier than many renters. Her property management company helped her find a new place, and she was able to afford the rent increase, from $900 to $1,200 a month. Still, the experience helped shape her role on the city coun- cil, where she has fought for tenant protections. In Spokane, income inequality and out-of- reach housing costs are forcing people onto Kathy Plonka / The Spokesman-Review / Kate Burke has been a driving force behind the push for tenant protections in the streets and into shelters. In late November, Spokane, Washington. She is pictured, center, protesting against a city law criminalizing homelessness. lawmakers drafted a set of laws that, should they pass, would usher in new safeguards for renters. “That just sucks.” for eviction, set limits on deposit and pet fees The fight over these proposed rules exempli- Rent is going up in part because of an influx and guarantee the rights of tenants to organize, fies the struggles many Western cities face as of new residents. In November 2019, real estate among other provisions. The new laws would also they attempt to balance continued growth with in Spokane and Spokane Valley had the high- require landlords to pay renters $2,000 in reloca- stability and shelter for their residents. est relative show of interest in the nation for tion costs under certain circumstances, including Housing costs are soaring in Spokane, but out-of-towners, according to Realtor.com. Much rent hikes that create a financial burden. wages aren’t keeping up. Since 2010, the aver- of that demand comes from the high-priced The proposed ordinances — especially the age rent has grown by 74%, to over $1,000 per Seattle area. Census data show that between relocation provision — could make a bad rental month. In the same period, the average renter’s 2013 and 2017, about 13,500 more people moved market even worse, said Steve Corker, the head income has increased by only 51%. For Keri, a to Spokane County than left, with the highest of the Landlord Association of the Inland North- single mother, that’s a major problem: Landlords amounts coming from populous counties in west. Many small landlords might choose to sell want tenants who earn three times the rent, well western Washington. their units rather than pay tenants to move. Big above what Keri makes working full-time. (Keri Faced with a challenging housing market developers could also shy away from investing asked HCN to withhold her last name to avoid and the prospect of being priced out, tenants in Spokane, if laws limit how they carry out conflict with her current landlord.) With her in Washington’s second-largest city are push- their business and can’t control conduct on rental duplex slated for renovation and her lease ing for protections. Over the course of last year, their properties, Corker said. “We don’t want ending in December, she’s looking at basement city leaders convened a series of meetings with to discourage people out of the rental business,” apartments, searching for roommates and even landlords and tenants to address the issue. In he said. When the new tenant protections were considering leaving Spokane altogether. “I’ve late November 2019, the council drafted tenant announced, Corker posted on the landlord asso- never had this problem before, ever,” she said. protection ordinances that narrow the reasons ciation’s website “asking every landlord, every
10 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS realtor, every property manager to write, call, e-mail City Council members requesting a delay in this vote. …” “We’re just stopping the bleeding SPOKANE ISN’T ALONE IN SEEKING solutions to keep housing affordable for renters. as we fight for permanent Earlier this year, Oregon’s Legislature enacted statewide rent control that caps year-to-year affordable housing.” increases at 7% plus inflation. In Seattle, City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant hopes to repeal a Washington state law banning local rent-con- trol measures; she also wants to ban evictions “It’s triage,” Anderson said. “We’re just stopping early December, the blitz of phone calls and during winter. And, starting in 2020, California the bleeding as we fight for permanent afford- emails from landlords led to the vote being will have statewide rules that require landlords able housing.” postponed until March. The night after the to cite legitimate reasons for evictions, pay relo- Vicki Dehnart, a 72-year-old retiree on a fixed delay was announced, incoming City Coun- cation fees to tenants evicted without cause, and income, would have benefited from such protec- cil President Breean Beggs met with about 20 restrict annual rent increases to 5% plus inflation. tions had they been in place last summer, when tenants and advocates and told them the vote Statewide rent control is a new phenomenon she was evicted from the apartment she’d lived had been delayed because the measures, at the in the West, but some large cities have served in for 33 years. Unable to find a rental in the time, lacked the votes to pass. as a testing ground for it, with mixed results. In tight market and without relocation assistance Attendees sitting in clusters at small tables the short term, limiting rent increases protects to help with moving costs, Dehnart first endured peppered Beggs with questions as he listened tenants from being priced out, according to a a disturbing experience with a roommate and patiently. He advised the tenants on the rules 2019 study by Stanford University economists then, last summer, became homeless for two for public testimony and suggested that loud assessing the impact of a 1994 rent-control law months. During July and August, she spent her displays of frustration would be less effective in San Francisco. Rent control proved especially days at a park, sitting on a blanket with her two than heartfelt personal stories. He also encour- beneficial for people of color, who, in Spokane 20-year-old cats, Feather and Socks, and her aged them to leverage any personal connections as well as in San Francisco, are more likely than nights at the Hope House shelter in downtown with council members. their white counterparts to rent. But in the Spokane. Every month, she’d bump up against Councilwoman Kate Burke felt less concil- long term, landlords who were subject to rent the $500 limit on each of her two credit cards. iatory. “We’re deferring action in winter, and I control were more likely to sell their rentals or “It was very traumatic for me,” she said. Even- guarantee I’ll be getting more emails and phone redevelop them to skirt the tenant protections. tually, Dehnart was able to find stable senior calls from tenants telling me they’re being taken The researchers concluded that, over time, housing. But she still worries about the women advantage of,” Burke said. In the meantime, rent control in San Francisco shrank the rental she met in the shelter who haven’t been able she’s received more than 150 emails from land- supply, increased rental costs, and exacerbated to find housing, and the many others who face lords, many of whom she says were misinformed gentrification and inequality. evictions and rent increases. “There’s nothing about the ordinances and their possible impacts. Spokane tenant advocate Terri Anderson, we did wrong,” Dehnart said. But rising rents To Burke, delaying the vote seemed like another the co-executive director of the Washington and lack of protections “forced us into a vulner- win for the political establishment. “The power Tenants Union, acknowledged that the proposed able situation.” in this city is and always has been with the good measures might not be a long-term solution. old boys,” she said. “The more we sit here and They would, however, help people currently A WEEK BEFORE THE SPOKANE CITY keep taking advice from landlords, the more facing evictions and the specter of homelessness. Council was set to vote on the ordinances in we’re just going to wait.”
THE LATEST Backstory Followup For decades, Western sheep ranchers were In a November press release, the Hispanic allowed to bring in herders, mainly from Affairs Project announced that it had settled Latin America, on temporary work visas. its lawsuit against the federal government In most states, the pay averaged $750 a over the use of temporary guest worker visas. month, only $100 more than it was in 1965. Under the settlement, ranchers will no longer But thanks to new regulations and combined be able to use temporary or seasonal visas lawsuits filed in Colorado and Utah, to fill labor needs. Instead, they will have to monthly wages were set to rise to $1,500 by hire American sheepherders or bring workers 2018. Still, activists question whether the into the country on permanent visas. Before, Visas for changes go far enough in addressing the workers on temporary guest worker visas were abuse of foreign labor. (“Far from home, effectively indentured to the same ranch for the West’s foreign sheepherders get a pay years, without bargaining power or a path to shepherds raise,” 2/22/16). permanent residency. —Kalen Goodluck
JANUARY 2020 11 Loren Holmes / Anchorage Daily News Nanieezh Peter and Quannah Chasing Horse stand together on stage at the Alaska Federation of Natives 2019 Convention.
“We shouldn’t have to tell people in charge that we want to survive. It should be our number-one right. We should not have to fight for this.”
12 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REPORTAGE
Raised voices Young Indigenous activists join a growing chorus for climate justice.
BY TRIPP J CROUSE
“WE DO NOT WANT TO STOP OUR WAYS In their speech to the delegation, Chasing Julie Maldonado works as a consultant for of life. That’s why we’re here.” Seventeen-year- Horse and Peter noted that Alaska’s land and the Institute for Tribal Environmental Profes- old Quannah Chasing Horse’s voice broke as she waters are warming at twice the rate as the rest sionals, developing climate change adaptation stood on stage in front of a sea of delegates at of the world and that melting permafrost and plans with tribal communities. She sees a trend the Alaska Federation of Natives 2019 Conven- mass erosion are forcing many communities to in governments and organizations beginning to tion in Fairbanks, Alaska. “We shouldn’t have to relocate. Chasing Horse said Indigenous youth seek out and listen to younger voices, a neces- tell people in charge that we want to survive. It are watching the climate crisis impact traditional sary step in finding answers to a global problem. should be our number-one right. We should not lifeways right before their eyes; she sees it every “We have a whole lot to learn from them. And have to fight for this.” year as temperatures affect subsistence activities, they can also see things much more clearly and In October, at one of the largest gatherings of with berries ripening early, permafrost melting be informed in ways that we don’t understand,” Indigenous people in the U.S., the Hans Gwich’in and animal migration patterns changing. Ruth said Maldonado, a lecturer in environmental and Lakota Sioux teenager stood with 15-year- Miller (Dena’ina Athabascan), 22, agreed. studies at the University of California Santa old Nanieezh Peter (Neetsaii Gwich’in and Diné) Miller, who grew up in Anchorage, learned Barbara. Because tribal nations are sovereign, and advocated for a resolution urging the feder- at an early age how her heritage, human rights Maldonado says, interest groups and governing ation’s voting members to take action on climate and environment are interconnected, in part bodies looking at climate change have a respon- change as it affects Alaska Native people in a way from her parents, both Native rights lawyers. sibility to consult with them, and to include the that matches the scale and urgency of the prob- This year, she represented the United Nations expertise of Indigenous communities when lem. Chasing Horse and Peter, who spoke for Association of the United States at the United determining solutions. That includes heeding the Elders and Youth Conference, which drafted Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues the knowledge and experiences of Indigenous the resolution, also called on members to create in New York. At AFN, she was in the audience youth. “These voices have to be joined together,” a climate action task force within AFN and to as Peter and Chasing Horse spoke in support of Maldonado says. “It has to be an intergenera- declare a state of emergency on climate change. the climate emergency resolution. The impacts tional conversation.” In appealing to the public for action, Chasing of climate change are “devastating,” Miller Over the next year, the Alaska Federation of Horse and Peter join the likes of Swedish climate said, “because they affect day-to-day lives of Natives delegation will use the climate emer- activist Greta Thunberg, 16, and clean-water subsistence hunters and gatherers of our rural gency resolution to guide its legislative and activist Autumn Peltier, 15, (Wikwemikong First communities of a state that relies on and is in policy work in the Alaska state Legislature Nation). A groundswell of voices is amplifying deep relationship with our lands and waters.” and the U.S. Congress. “For many Indigenous the concerns of youth on larger stages — and Still, the resolution faced opposition from dele- peoples, we’ve had this agreement to our land decision-makers at the state, national and global gates with oil and gas interests along the North and to our animals that we would protect each level are starting to listen. At the Alaska Feder- Slope, who were concerned that it could hamper other, and we keep each other alive. We’d stand ation of Natives Convention — a delegation of their ability to develop natural resources and up for each other,” Chasing Horse said during thousands of Alaska Natives from 12 different extractive industry. The conflict illustrated philo- an interview after the AFN resolutions gaveled regions across the state — they were heard. sophical differences between Native communities out, with Peter by her side. “As youth, we have Before the end of the session, the convention relying on natural resource development for an our new ideas and our perspective and fresh voted to declare a “climate emergency” to a economic base and infrastructure, versus commu- eyes,” Peter added, following up Chasing Horse’s standing ovation from the audience. nities who see it as a threat to subsistence lifeways. thought. “Our voices are powerful.”
JANUARY 2020 13 Photographer name / Image Source / Cerioctortem pl. Simil trum oc ipsederum inumendum mantilla revit. Cerrit prae ia nereo, num temperf erorari, notiu ere facero postra L. Iverbitum, omnessidefex ma, deesseniquam opublicae duc ortis nirmissilius in sin atrum nihint. Verita qua consulv ivatus Catquamdicae
14 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Where ‘the West’ Begins Forth Worth, Texas, cashes in on selective history.
BY TRISTAN AHTONE PHOTOS BY TOMO
JANUARY 2020 15 Twice a day on Saturdays ON A WARM SATURDAY “Wait a minute!” cried the deputy evil Brodies sprawled dead on the and Sundays, the acting afternoon in Fort Worth, Texas, half — marking the sixth time the shoot- ground, clutching their chests and troupe known as the Legends of Texas provides a dozen cowboys got ready to shoot out paused for comic relief. “Code sides. spectators with pistol duels each other. The Brodies, a bank-rob- of the West? Is that the one where I It was just another day’s work in and historic re-enactments bing gang on the lam from the Waco gotta die with my boots off? Or die the Fort Worth Stockyards, where from the mid- to late- 1800s in High Noon-style jail, had returned to Fort Worth’s with my boots on?” the past is replaced with mythology showdowns. (left) historic Stockyards to exact revenge “Boots on, boots off, it don’t and reality is obscured by illusion. on the folks that put them away: the matter to us,” said one of the The gunslingers, a gang of At Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show, performers re-enact town marshal and his dim-witted Brodies. “Either way: You gotta die.” volunteers who shoot each other the original spectacle deputy. It was four against two, and The marshal assumed a fatherly twice a day on Saturdays and from the late 1800s and the gunfighters stood a few yards tone. “Honoring the Code of the Sundays, sported horseshoe early 1900s. Here, an actor performs a “ceremonial apart, ready to draw. West means standing up for law mustaches and spoke with thick buffalo dance” for onlookers. “Marshal, I think they all want and order, doing what’s right,” drawls. Nearby, longhorn cows Whether the dance has any to know what you have planned to he explained. “You know, like meandered through the streets. roots in Indigenous customs or practice is unclear. do about this,” squealed the deputy. Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Whiskey was flowing at all the (center) “Me?” replied the marshal. “We Marshal Matt Dillon, and of course, saloons, open containers were — as in me and you — are going to Marion Morrison.” allowed on the sidewalks, and A “New World” cattle breed, the Texas longhorn honor the Code of the West.” “Marianne who?” the entire cast kitschy stores hawked everything descends directly from the The men squared up and said in unison. from plastic trinkets to high-end first domesticated cows reached for their revolvers. The “John Wayne!” hollered some- hats and boots. brought to the Caribbean by Columbus in 1493. And every leather on their gloves creaked as body from the audience. If the Old West is a fantasy, the day, at 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., they tightened their grips on their After a few more wait-a-min- Stockyards is its muse. Here, folk- they make a lazy parade loop guns. Their spurs tinkled as they utes from the deputy, the men lore and legend are summoned around the Stockyards for onlookers. (overleaf) dug their heels into the brick. drew. When the smoke cleared, the through ritual and repetition,
16 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Founded in 1947, the Cattlemen’s Steak House is one of more than two dozen restaurants and bars that offer “an authentic glimpse of the American West” to visitors who venture into the Stockyards. (below)
burying the reality of the cold- rants, 13 bars, 35 shops and over 17 Show, which is held every Saturday longhorns to trespass. The Code of blooded past underneath fami- must-see attractions that offer an afternoon. “It’s where they would the West has its limits, apparently ly-friendly fun, complete with “authentic glimpse of the American bring their cattle down close to — then and now. some of the West’s oldest phan- West.” the Trinity River. Well, the chuck- At Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show, tasms: the dime-store novel hero, Fort Worth’s version of the West wagon cook could reload supplies which is held in the Cowtown Coli- the courageous gunfights, the idea is distinctly different from what and provisions to get ’em to the seum, a small herd of buffalo ran of a dusty frontier just waiting to be lies beyond the 100th meridian. next stop before crossing the Red through before a man dressed as a discovered. It’s clean and tidy, with Outside the gunfights, saloons River into the Oklahoma Territory.” Plains Indian came out to perform no hint of the brutal scalp-hunters and rodeos, Texas longhorns roam, Like many of the Stockyard’s what Pawnee Bill dubbed a “cere- or paramilitaries who attended to serving as the region’s mascots, less-than-accurate storylines, this monial buffalo dance” of dubi- the expansion of the nation’s fron- despite being uncommon in most statement requires some context: ous cultural origin. A rider atop a tier, no acknowledgement of their other Western states, like Oregon The Oklahoma Territory was not galloping horse shot a single-ac- victims or their violent legacy. or Utah. Out of all the ungulates, established until 1890, while the tion .45-caliber Colt revolver, and “Established at the fork of the a buffalo might best represent the Chisholm Trail was generally no a woman used a mirror to fire over Trinity River in 1849,” reads the American West. But Fort Worth has longer in use by about 1884. This her shoulder, shooting station- Stockyard’s website, “the Fort remade the West in its own image. is a minor historical quibble, and I ary balloons out from between a Worth Stockyards represented the “If you didn’t know it, you’re don’t fault a live performer at a Wild man’s legs. last ‘civilized’ outpost for cowboys sitting smack-dab in the middle West show for mixing up dates or The show ran twice that day driving cattle to market along of the Chisholm Trail: the most trying to simplify a story for inter- before the rodeo began. Rodeo is the famous Chisholm Trail.” Now famous cattle trail back in the days national audiences. But it is helpful big in the Stockyards, with a fairly listed in the National Register of of the drives back in the late 1800s,” to know that before it was known large competition running in the Historic Places, it boasts daily intoned a man playing famed as the Oklahoma Territory, it was Cowtown Coliseum every Friday cattle drives, rodeos, a Wild West Wild West showman Pawnee Bill Indian Territory, and it was essen- and Saturday night. Twice a night show, livestock auctions, 14 restau- during Pawnee Bill’s Wild West tially illegal for a settler and his on Fridays and Saturdays, a block
JANUARY 2020 17 Country music star Neil McCoy performs at Billy Bob’s Texas — the world’s largest honky-tonk. But Billy Bob’s isn’t exactly a local haunt. “You’re more likely to find someone from Australia than Texas here,” a bartender told us. (right)
away, another rodeo is held at Billy a dumbass if you don’t like it.” Bob’s, the world’s “largest honky- Only a month earlier and less tonk.” than 10 miles away, a black woman “The Stockyards are very named Atatiana Jefferson was shot historic; it was the last place that and killed in her home by a white people could come and sell their Fort Worth police officer named cows before going into Indian Aaron Dean while she played video Territory,” explained Autumn, a games with her nephew. Neverthe- bartender at one of Billy Bob’s 27 less, a few people stood and took off bars. “So we’ve kind of basically their hats. Then a few more. By the built off of that and kind of stuck end of the song, almost everyone with the heritage.” was standing, swaying. The violence of that heritage “I’ll honor the ones who gave it rarely appears in such elevator all, so we’re all free to go play ball,” pitches, nor do any of its current iter- sang McCoy. “If only for their sake, ations. In November, on the Friday I won’t take a knee. O, say can you night that High Country News was see? If only for their sake, I won’t reporting there, country music take a knee.” singer Neal McCoy performed. In McCoy’s performance, McCoy, the son of a Filipina mother violence was removed, as it gener- marshal intoned in his best John A group of young women and Irish father, had a merch table ally is, in the Stockyards, replaced Wayne drawl. “Doing what a man at Billy Bob’s admire their portrait, which was taken on that pushed shirts with the title by a more favorable, friendly view has to do. You know, like Hopalong the back of a stuffed bull — of his newest single, “Take a Knee of the West. Cassidy. Like the Cisco Kid. Like the one of many attractions the ... My Ass!” — a political anthem Just 48 hours later, a new set of Lone Ranger. Like Leonard Slye.” bar offers to patrons. (above) aimed at athletes like Colin Kaeper- actors got ready to shoot it out, just “Leonard who?” the entire cast For visitors with slightly nick and Megan Rapinoe, who have a few blocks from Billy Bob’s. The said in unison. deeper pockets, Leddy’s knelt during the national anthem Brodies had escaped again, and the “Anybody know who Leonard offers high-end Western wear and handmade boots at sporting events to protest police dopey deputy was still unsure of Slye is?” asked the deputy. and saddles in almost every brutality and racism. just what constituted the Code of Nobody in the audience style and variety of leather “A lot of people don’t like this the West. answered. A few minutes later, the imaginable. (left) song, and I understand,” he says “The Code of the West means Brody Gang lay dead in the street as before launching into it. “But you’re standing up for what’s right,” the tourists took pictures.
18 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REPORTAGE
A call on the Clark Fork As subdivisions spread, it’s becoming harder to manage Montana’s water.
BY HELEN SANTORO
O’BRIEN CREEK IS SITUATED ABOUT four miles west of Missoula, Montana. Flowing “It’s making an already complicated alongside country roads, it meanders past neigh- borhoods on its journey to the Bitterroot River, a system more complicated.” tributary of the Clark Fork. But years of drought, decreased snowpack and water siphoned off for crops, livestock and lawns have led to danger- ously low flows by late summer. To protect the stream and its native westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout, the Clark Fork Coalition, a water- waters Economics. The demographic landscape injured water-rights holder,” Bryan said. shed-wide nonprofit, bought the majority of the is changing as well: Several western Montana To make this task easier at O’Brien Creek, the creek’s senior water rights in 2014. This permits counties are attracting younger people and new Clark Fork Coalition installed a satellite teleme- the organization to stop upstream homeowners residents from across the country. try station with sensors that can provide water- from using too much water. All this population growth is making water level data to people at a distance. “Using the But that might be easier said than done. A few management more complicated. Montana telemetry station has helped keep everybody in summers ago, Jed Whiteley, the organization’s practices the “first in time, first in right” rule compliance,” Whiteley said. “It’s raising aware- project manager and monitoring coordinator, common among Western states, meaning that ness of people who live on the creek.” And it’s contacted every homeowner on the formerly the first person to use a water source has senior working: Since the coalition bought its water agricultural land and told them they had to stop rights over newer users. Senior water-right rights, the tributary no longer goes completely using large amounts of water by mid-July. The holders are responsible for enforcing their own dry during the hot summer months. homeowners were shocked. “Nobody had made water rights; when less water is available, they However, this awareness may be limited. In a call on the senior water right in a while,” said have to call upstream junior users and ask them 2011, Barbara Chenoweth moved from Missoula Whiteley. “They got used to not getting called on, to turn off their water. But where there used to to O’Brien Creek Meadows, a quiet subdivision of and all of a sudden, we’re shutting them down.” be one rancher to call, there may now be an around 30 houses downstream from the neigh- And such calls may soon become more entire subdivision with 20 homeowners in it. A borhood Whiteley had to call. “We absolutely love common. Montana’s population has risen by 7.4% senior user now must speak to multiple property it,” said Chenoweth. “It’s private and out of town.” since 2010, and ranch lands across the state are owners, many of whom may not understand Still, when it comes to water, she notes that her being subdivided. But when land is divided, so the limits of their water rights. “It’s making an neighbors don’t seem overly concerned. “It never are the water rights, creating an increasingly frac- already complicated system more complicated,” feels like we’re losing a bunch of water,” she said, tured landscape. For senior water-right holders said Andrew Gorder, the legal director at the “but the river flows are obviously affected.” like the Clark Fork Coalition, this makes protect- Clark Fork Coalition. This worries Whiteley. “Many people don’t ing a valuable resource even more challenging. Furthermore, many homes in subdivisions understand the intensity of what’s going on,” The Clark Fork River’s 14 million-acre water- depend on “permit-exempt wells” for domestic he said. “Especially in more urban areas, most shed stretches from the city of Butte in south- use. Because these “exempt” wells are largely people don’t know that things are going dry.” western Montana all the way to Lake Pend immune from regulatory oversight, it’s not neces- For Whiteley, it’s a familiar problem: His home- Oreille in North Idaho. Once it was dotted with sarily clear whether they’re taking the amount town of Sonoma, California, has grown drasti- farms and ranches, but in recent decades, tens of of water they’re permitted to, said Michelle cally since he was a kid. Now, he’s seeing some of thousands of new houses have been built in the Bryan, a professor at the University of Montana, the same changes hitting Montana. “We’re right region. From 1990 to 2016, over 1.3 million acres Missoula’s law school. That makes it harder for on the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “I don’t think of undeveloped land in Montana was converted senior users to prove they aren’t getting the water anyone can really see what is going to happen into housing, according to a 2018 report by Head- they deserve. “It puts the burden of proof on the to Montana in the next 20 years.”
JANUARY 2020 19 FACTS & FIGURES NUCLEAR POWER GENERATES electricity without emitting green- house gases or other air pollutants. Yet it hasn’t been extensively deployed to fight climate change because of safety fears, the high cost of construc- tion and, perhaps most significantly, the hazardous waste, or spent fuel, Waste not, want not reactors produce. Now, as the climate crisis worsens, pro-nuclear groups are speaking out. Nuclear power is emissions-free, but at what cost? One such group, Generation Atomic, argues that nuclear power doesn’t really have a waste problem. All 88,000 tons or so of waste produced by BY JONATHAN THOMPSON reactors in the U.S. could fit onto a single football field, stacked just 24 feet high, it says, with the waste produced by an individual’s lifetime energy consumption fitting in one soda can. Compare that to the 100 million
WITH IN SITU EXTRACTION, substances are pumped into the ground to dissolve the uranium into a sludge that is pumped back to the surface. The practice is safer for workers and causes less surface damage, but it’s not hazard-free; Wyoming’s Lost Creek in situ facility has had at least 40 spills, violations or “events” since 2013, including a 711 cubic meter spill of uranium-tainted injection fluid in 2017. The Trump administration’s Bureau of Land Management approved an expansion at Lost Creek in March 2019.
NUCLEAR WASTE Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station MINE: 323,624 tons of ore. This generates about 31,000 produces 1.62 million tons of gigawatt-hours of power lightly radioactive waste rock. each year. That requires Currently, only about 5% of the about 86 tons of uranium uranium used in U.S. reactors is CONVERSION: The uranium must then be oxide, enriched to 3-to-5% mined domestically; most comes converted via chemical reaction with fluorine to 912.1 tons of UF or uranium hexafluoride, uranium-235. In order to from Canada, Russia, Australia 6 produce that, you need to: and Kazakhstan. producing 431.6 tons of solid waste and 4,008 cubic meters of liquid waste.
CONVENTIONAL URANIUM The ore must be MILLED, or pulverized and processed with sulfuric acid and other
MINING can be done either chemicals to extract the uranium, producing: 731 tons of U308, triuranium octoxide, or underground or open pit, with yellowcake, along with 322,893 tons of radioactive tailings. Uranium extracted in situ ore dug out of the earth and sent is processed, but not milled, and produces waste slurry and water rather than tailings. to the mill. Uranium miners are TAILINGS contain uranium’s radioactive “daughters” — radium, radon and thorium — as exposed to radium, radon, and well as significant amounts of other hazardous material, such as lead, copper, arsenic other toxic dusts and historically and vanadium. Millions of tons of tailings were piled up or dumped in waterways next to have experienced high rates of mills across the West during the Cold War, leaving behind a deadly legacy. Some mills, lung cancer and other illnesses. including the Atlas Mill in Moab, Utah, are still being cleaned up today.
... AND THEN THERE’S COAL In order for a coal-burning power plant to produce 31,000 gigawatt-hours per year, or the same amount of electricity generated by Palo MINE: 15.24 million tons of coal. Coal mining produces its own Verde Nuclear Generating form of waste rock, known as spoil, overburden or gob. Coal Station, you would need to: mines also release methane — a greenhouse gas with 86 times the short-term warming potential of carbon dioxide. A surface mine would emit as much as 207,000 tons of methane per year.
20 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS tons of solid waste — about a 5-mile-high pile on a football field — that U.S. Diameter of circle = coal-fired power plants kick out each year. These figures are accurate, but incomplete: They leave out several steps 100,000 tons of waste product from coal power generation that precede the power generation phase, each of which produces sizable quantities of hazardous and radioactive waste. By omitting these, we risk 100,000 tons of waste product from nuclear power generation ignoring the bulk of the nuclear industry’s human and environmental toll. The following diagram quantifies the waste that is produced, from mining 1 billion gallons of water use to power generation, from a year of power production — enough for about INFOGRAPHIC BY LUNA ANNA ARCHEY 2.44 million households — at a plant the size of Palo Verde Nuclear Generat- SOURCES: Waste and Environment Safety Section of the International ing Station in Arizona. It would take about 1.7 billion soda cans, or a football Atomic Energy Agency; U.S. Energy Information Administration; Generation Atomic; Nuclear Energy Institute; World Nuclear field stacked 580 feet high, to contain just one year’s waste. Association; Arizona Public Service; WISE Uranium Project.
ENRICHMENT: The uranium left at this point consists WATER: Nuclear power generation requires mostly of the 238 isotope, but reactors (and bombs) water for steam production and for cooling.
need the more reactive 235 isotope. So the UF6 must Palo Verde uses up to 24 billion gallons be enriched to increase the concentration of the (90.9 million cubic meters) per year, but fissionable uranium-235. Enrichment yields 113.03 since it’s in a desert, 97% of the water is
tons of enriched UF6, containing 3 to 5% percent recycled sewage from nearby communities. U-235 (high enough to run a reactor, but not to build The wastewater is recycled or evaporated, not an atomic bomb) with the remainder made up of discharged into the environment.
U-238 + 798.7 tons of depleted UF6 (waste).
FUEL FABRICATION: Finally, the POWER GENERATION: The fuel rods, containing 86.05 tons of uranium oxide,
enriched UF6 is converted into 86.05 are inserted into the reactors — Palo Verde has three — where a uranium-235 tons of uranium oxide, which is then atom is bombarded with a neutron, causing it to fission, or split, and release high subjected to high heat to create amounts of energy (heat) along with other neutrons, which then split other atoms, ceramic pellets that are packed into creating a chain reaction. During the reaction, the uranium-238 can absorb fuel rods, producing 37.89 cubic neutrons, turning it into plutonium-239. The heat generates steam, which turns meters of solid waste, plus 682.85 a turbine, generating an electric current. After one to three years, the fuel rod is cubic meters of liquid waste. traded out for a new one, resulting in a total of 86.05 tons of spent fuel, or high- level radioactive waste, per year. This spent fuel consists of approximately 80.8 tons of U-238, .86 tons of U-235, .34 tons U-236, 2.93 tons fission products and .86 tons plutonium.
When BURNED to produce steam to turn a turbine to generate electricity, that amount WATER: Like nuclear power, of coal will emit about 44.8 million tons of carbon dioxide per year (which, at the scale coal power uses large quantities shown in other circles on this page, would result in a circle over 8 ½ feet tall), along with of water. The Navajo Generating 11,138 tons of sulfur dioxide, 47,609 tons of nitrous oxides and 600 pounds of mercury Station, for example, which per year. Burning this amount of coal would produce at least 2.5 million tons of coal ash, was just shut down, consumed tainted by mercury, arsenic, selenium, lead and even radioactive materials, each year. about 9 billion gallons per year.
JANUARY 2020 21 Ash Ponders for High Country News / Jose Montelongo and his sister, Marisela, sit in the living room of her Flagstaff, Arizona, home where Jose has recently moved to save money for a lawyer.
zens. Over the next two days, the arrest over an unpaid fine related REPORTAGE agents would arrest and threaten to a 2016 DUI charge. They brought multiple members of Montelongo’s Montelongo to the Coconino family in Flagstaff and in Sedona in County Jail, where, under a special their attempt to find him. agreement with ICE, the sheriff’s For many people who witnessed office honored a “detainer” — a ‘Why are you doing this?’ the arrests or heard about them, the request by ICE to hold someone for aggressive tactics and collateral an additional 48 hours after his or One family’s ordeal under Trump’s zero-tolerance arrests that took place last April her release date, in order to allow immigration tactics. raised questions about the power agents to take them into immigra- extended to ICE under the Trump tion custody. Detainers raise seri- BY SARAH TORY administration. For the local immi- ous constitutional issues because grant and Latino communities in they often hold people even when particular, the arrests felt like a there are no charges pending or a confirmation of their worst fears: probable cause of any violation. *Note: Some names have been field office in Phoenix, Arizona, that even a minor encounter with While he was still in jail last changed to protect the privacy of north to Flagstaff, a city nestled the criminal justice system can January, Montelongo and his individuals beneath the 12,000-foot San Fran- mean deportation, by any means lawyer filed a lawsuit against cisco Peaks. They were looking for necessary. A few months earlier, Coconino County Sheriff Jim ONE AFTERNOON LAST APRIL, 28-year-old Jose Montelongo, an Montelongo had been pulled over Driscoll and Matthew Figueroa, a group of agents with Immigration undocumented immigrant who for driving 2 miles over the speed the jail commander, arguing and Customs Enforcement (ICE) grew up in Flagstaff and is the father limit. Police officers discovered that detainer requests don’t give drove the four hours from the ICE of three young children, all U.S. citi- that there was a warrant for his Arizona sheriffs the authority to
22 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS prolong detention for civil immi- modern-day immigration enforce- was going 32 (miles per hour) in a them. If they had a minor warrant gration violations. In response, the ment in America and how it affects 30 mph zone. I gave him my regis- for a traffic violation, ICE probably sheriff’s office offered Montelongo the lives of those involved. Every tration and insurance and he ran doesn’t want to pick them up, but if a deal: If he dropped the lawsuit, year, thousands of individuals are my ID. There was a warrant on me they’ve been deported four times or ICE would drop the detainer. ICE arrested by ICE and taken to remote for the 2016 DUI. I was making 12 times, ICE wants ’em, or if they’ve lifted his detainer, and he was detention centers, with life-altering payments towards the fine, but when been involved in other criminal released from jail on Feb. 14. consequences for their families and I went back to Mexico, I couldn’t pay activities, ICE will just about always But it wasn’t over yet; often their entire communities. I anymore, so they put out a warrant put a detainer on them. Montelongo had no idea just how turned to oral history in an effort for my arrest. There are some groups out there far ICE was willing to go to get him. to capture the emotional reality I tried to ask the police officer to that I think create the fear in the ICE refused to answer my questions of those arrests. What follows is a arrest me behind the truck so my community. As we tell people: If you on its investigative techniques, but first-person record of those two days. daughter wouldn’t see. He said, “No, haven’t done anything wrong, you in interviews, Montelongo’s family put your hands behind your back.” don’t have to worry. If you are undoc- recounted similar stories of how Jose Montelongo, 28: I got my first She was in there looking at me, umented, don’t engage in criminal the agency secretly monitored DUI in 2013 and went to Eloy (an and I kept telling her that everything activity and you don’t have to worry them as part of its efforts to find immigrant detention center in south- will be OK. about anything. Don’t get drunk and Montelongo. One teenaged niece ern Arizona). At the time, I qualified drive. Don’t get arrested. described how she received Face- for a cancellation of removal because AFTER THE POLICE TOOK book friend requests from strange of my kids. I got a work permit, and Montelongo to the Coconino MONTELONGO HAD BEEN IN JAIL men who turned out to be ICE things got a little better. County Jail, Sheriff Jim Driscoll for more than a month when the agents. Then came the arrests. In 2016, I got another DUI. I got notified ICE about his arrest, which sheriff’s office made a deal with Under President Donald Trump, sent to Eloy again. Arizona is really put a detainer on him. On Jan. 9, ICE to get Montelongo’s lawsuit aggressive tactics have become strict about DUIs, so my lawyer 2019, Montelongo and his attor- dismissed: ICE lifted its detainer, more common as ICE looks to fulfill recommended I take the voluntary neys filed a lawsuit against Driscoll and on Feb. 14, his family paid his the goal of “zero tolerance.” One of departure option (commonly known and Matthew Figueroa, his jail bond and he was released. Two Trump’s first acts as president was as “self-deportation”). commander, challenging the consti- months later, they came back for to undo his predecessor’s priorities: I went to Zacatecas, but I missed tutionality of the detainer policy. him. Now, every undocumented immi- my kids. I would talk to them and Similar lawsuits have been grant is a possible target. As a result, they’d ask me where I was, but I filed in courts across the country Alejandra Becerra, 26, Flagstaff the number of ICE arrests has couldn’t really tell them because they over concerns that they lack the immigrant rights organizer: It was soared: Between September 2016 didn’t know what’s going on, so I’d legal authority to do so. In Arizona, a Thursday — April 18 — when I got and December 2018, the number of just have to be like, “Oh, I’m working, many sheriffs continue to honor a call from Marisela (Montelongo’s people in ICE custody around the but I’ll be home soon.” detainers under SB 1070, the state’s sister). She was crying and saying country increased by over 8,600 to There’s a lot of cartels there (in draconian “show me your papers that ICE was at her house and to nearly 47,500. Meanwhile, the vast Zacatecas). One time some guys law.” Even though it was mostly please come. I drove there quickly, majority of people arrested by ICE came up to me and told me to get struck down in 2016, a number of using a back way because ICE had as of June 2018 — four out of five — in the truck. They showed me their the law’s provisions remain in place, blocked off the majority of their had no criminal record or had only guns, and that’s when I decided to including one that gives sheriffs the street. I got out of my car and saw committed a minor offense, such as come back. option of upholding detainers. eight to 10 officers standing outside a traffic violation. I went to (Ciudad) Juárez and the house. They were talking to Many of ICE’s new tactics are basically just crossed illegally. It is Jim Driscoll, 67, Coconino County another one of Jose’s sisters, and unprecedented, César Cuauhtémoc really scary because there are cartels sheriff: The state of Arizona has then I saw her being put in hand- García Hernández, an immigration on the border that try to control a specific law; it says no official or cuffs. I saw her kids crying. Jose’s two lawyer and migration scholar, told territory, but I was more scared to agency of this state may limit or older nieces were asking the officers, me. “They’re using the existence get picked up by immigration and go restrict the enforcement of federal “Why are you doing this?” of children and family members, through that process again. immigration laws to less than the I remember coming inside, and for example, to capture someone That’s when I started driving a fullest extent permitted by law. If Jose’s niece was asking me, “They they’re interested in detaining,” he little more, because I’d get jobs and, they change the law, I’ll gladly took my mom? Did they take my said. Montelongo’s arrest was also well, I needed to work. comply. I don’t have a personal mom?” They didn’t know what to do part of a new pattern of targeting I got back to Flagstaff in 2017. interest in this. or what was going to happen to them. immigration activists or anyone That’s when I started driving a little When a person is brought in, who has spoken out against the more, because I’d get jobs and, well, I they’ve been arrested on local Marisela, 35, Montelongo’s sister: agency. (ICE denies that it has needed to work. charges — what we call “state of About two hours after they took my targeted anyone for retaliation.) The day I got pulled over, I had Arizona charges.” They’re brought sister and her husband, they (ICE) In May, I traveled to Flagstaff to gone to pick up my youngest daugh- in, and at that point if there are told me over the phone that they interview Montelongo, his family ter. She’s 4 years old. I took her out suspicions that they could be in the were bringing them home. and others connected to the April for breakfast and as soon as we got country illegally, we contact ICE. My sister told me that they (the 18-19 arrests. I wanted to under- back home, they (the police) pulled If they’re not involved in major ICE agents) had told her that if she stand the power and reach of up right behind me. He told me I issues, ICE generally doesn’t want revealed where Jose was, nothing
JANUARY 2020 23 bad would happen, but if she did I went around the block and did he posted bond. not tell them, they would arrest another circle, and all of a sudden Previously, in November 2016, us all and give the children to the I saw several SUVs showing up and an immigration judge with EOIR government. there was a bunch of men getting out granted Montelongo-Morales a Then my sister started telling me — some with bulletproof vests on and voluntary departure and ICE repa- that they have information on all some carrying rifles. triated him to Mexico at that time. of us — on all of Jose’s siblings and There were probably 11 of them Further, relevant databases indi- on my dad and my mom. She said (ICE agents) that I counted, in four cate Montelongo-Morales has two they have a folder for each of us, with to five different vehicles. It looked misdemeanor convictions (5/2013 pictures. The know everything. They like a SWAT team. They surrounded and 3/2016) for driving under the told my sister that, two Sundays the house, and I asked if they had a influence of alcohol. ago, the family had gone to eat at warrant, and they said no. They An immigration judge with EOIR Taco Bell. They knew what time my didn’t tell me who they were looking will determine if Montelongo-Mo- mother dropped off my nephew at for or what was going on at all, so I rales has a legal basis to remain in school, what time she got on the bus just stayed there. the United States. and when she went to work. They spoke to the owner of the We started thinking about how … home to see if he would give consent “They were THIS PAST JUNE, A JUDGE how they might have followed us. We for them to enter. They said they’d dismissed Montelongo’s lawsuit don’t know how they have so much break in if they had to wait for a like, ‘You against the Coconino County Sher- information. warrant. iff’s Office, ruling that because ICE While they were negotiating shouldn’t lifted the detainer, he no longer had Rosa, 15, Montelongo’s niece: with the homeowner (Montelon- legal standing to sue. Montelongo When all the trucks started to go’s brother-in-law), they said that have done and his lawyer are appealing the come around us, that’s when I got they had arrested his wife (Jose’s ruling. And this coming January, scared. They told my auntie, “You’re sister, Karen). She was in one of the that. You Judge Linda Spencer-Walters will arrested.” They didn’t tell her for vehicles with tinted windows so you rule on Montelongo’s case in immi- what or anything. She was carrying couldn’t see in. They said that if he just made it gration court in Phoenix. her little baby, so she gave me her son, consented to a search, they would and my sister was holding her baby, release her that day with just a date worse it for Jose Montelongo: Some people in my but she couldn’t breathe and that’s for an immigration court hearing, community don’t agree with me for why I took the baby from her because but if he did not consent, they would everybody.’ speaking out because they’re afraid. I thought she was going to faint. bring her to jail. So that was a lot of They were like, “You shouldn’t have What’s been affecting me the most pressure against the homeowner. But it’s not done that. You just made it worse is that I’ve just been afraid. Like one Right at that moment, Jose it for everybody.” But it’s not like day, if I go home, and my mom’s not walked out the door, and they like that, that, because ICE is gonna come no there, what would I do? detained him immediately I turned matter what. If they’re looking for around, and I didn’t see them release because ICE someone or they’re gonna do raids, THE DAY AFTER THE ARRESTS, the homeowner’s wife, but I saw her no one can stop them. That’s ICE. on April 19, ICE agents arrived in lying on the pavement just sobbing, is gonna They came for me, and they were Sedona, 30 miles south of Flag- face down. She was sobbing as hard gonna get me no matter what. staff, to continue their hunt for as I’ve seen anyone sob. come no There are still days when I’m Montelongo, who had been living just tired of this. I can’t work, I can’t there with his sister, Karen. They ICE DECLINED MY REQUEST matter what.” drive. And … like, what am I doing? arrested Karen at a gas station on for an interview to discuss the Sometimes I want to give up. I just her way to work. After putting her tactics used to arrest Montelongo, want to say, “I’m done, I’ll go back (to into their truck, agents asked her including the threats made to his Mexico), or go to another country.” about her brother’s whereabouts, family members, but did issue the But it’s kind of hard to because my threatening to take her children following statement. whole family is here. My kids moti- away if she did not tell them. After vate me a lot. I need to fight — then she told them, they drove to her Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, ICE Public at least I can tell them I tried. home to find Montelongo. Affairs Officer: On April 19, 2019, How would you feel if you were in U.S. Immigration and Customs my situation? Mik Jordahl, 61, lawyer, witness to Enforcement arrested Jose Guada- What do you think is fair? the Sedona arrests: I was given a lupe Montelongo-Morales and What would you have done? street address, and I went by. It was placed him into removal proceed- 10 a.m. I saw nothing. It looked like ings. An immigration judge with the home was completely vacant. It the Executive Office for Immigra- was a double-wide mobile home in a tion Review (EOIR) granted him nice area with trees lining the street. bond, and ICE released him after
24 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS ON THE ROAD TO 50 A quick guide to your redesigned magazine
BY BRIAN CALVERT
High Country News has turned 50. To celebrate, we’re bring- ing you a new magazine with a new schedule and a new look. Watch this space for more notes from the magazine staff on celebrations and observations throughout the year.
The January issue you hold in your hands is the product of two years of experimentation and hard work. In many ways, it’s also the product of 50 years of success. It marks a signifi- cant evolution of the magazine, not just in its look and feel but in its vision and breadth of coverage. It’s our 50th anniversary gift to you, our readers. The West has become an increasingly complex place. With the new magazine, we will continue to cover the high country, even as we journey farther afield, bringing you stories essential to understanding the region as a whole. We want to inform, inspire and challenge readers to make the West a better place for its people, its wildlife and its land- scapes. Today, that requires an understanding of the intricate IMAGE relationships between environmental, ecological, cultural, social and political issues. We are up to the challenge. Our aim with the new design and 16-issue schedule is to bring our in-depth journalism to a wider range of subjects and deliver it to you in a useful and beautiful magazine. Every month, you’ll find thorough coverage of the region, including Alaska, the Pacific Coast, tribal nations and the Interior West. You’ll see photographic stories that bring the Western U.S. to life and read features that emphasize storytelling to help explain what’s happening here. And you’ll read essays, criticism, perspectives and reviews exploring the ideas that spring from the West. Meanwhile, we’ve kept your (and our) favorite parts: “Heard Around the West” endures, but we’ve snugged it just inside the magazine, where you can still read it first thing or save it for dessert. We’ve also added several departments. In “What Works,” we’ll highlight solutions to the region’s most vexing chal- Bob Wick / BLM / A vista in Basin and Range National Monument, Nevada. lenges. In “Facts and Figures,” we’ll analyze new and interest- ing data and other information troves to create a fuller picture of the region. “West Obsessed” will consider how the region impacts broader national trends. And on the back page, in We want to inform, inspire and “#iamthewest, we will honor, in their own words, people who are making a positive contribution to the West. challenge readers to make the We hope this new approach will deliver all that you’ve come to expect from High Country News and more. We West a better place for its people, could not have done it without you, and we are committed to constant improvement in the years to come. Your sugges- its wildlife and its landscapes. tions are welcome; please email me at [email protected]. Thank you, and enjoy your new magazine!
JANUARY 2020 25 “As local newspapers slowly move toward extinction, HCN is more vital than ever for people who care about the West.” — John Rosenberg, Tumwater, WA
Thank you for supporting our hard-working journalists. Since 1971, reader contributions have made it possible for HCN to report on the American West. Your donation directly funds nonprofit, independent journalism. Visit hcn.org/support to give.
INDEPENDENT MEDIA GUARDIAN Bruce Berger | Aspen, CO Jim Jacobs | Lewiston, ID Michael & Karen Fried Community Education Fund, Montana Scott Borg | Albuquerque, NM Caroline Kauffman | Lafayette, CO Community Foundation | Broomfield, CO Herman Damek | Niwot, CO Greg Kern | Silver Spring, MD Darla Damerell | Paonia, CO Scott Killops | Portland, OR PUBLISHER’S CIRCLE Jackie Diedrich | Lake Oswego, OR Janet King | Berkeley, CA In memory of Warren Bourdette | Portland, OR Bruce Driver & Charlene Dougherty | Boulder, CO Joshua Koch | Louisville, CO Open Space Access Fund, Community Foundation of Boulder Caroline W. Duell | Carbondale, CO Jeffrey Ladd | Chester, VT County | Boulder, CO Mark Franzen | Columbine Valley, CO Suzanne Liles | Yellville, AR Glenn Furnier & Aida Castillo Flores | Tucson, AZ Patricia Litton | Oakland, CA Larry Krause | Riverton, WY Peggy Livingston | Boulder, CO PHILANTHROPIST Bruce H. Leland | New Castle, CO Dana Lobell | Brooklyn, NY Sandy Bergo | Washington, DC Eric & Elizabeth Lennert | Lyons, CO Joan Lucas | Wilson, WY Judd & Mary Anne Brown | La Jolla, CA Patricia Mehlhop | Albuquerque, NM Don MacGregor | Steamboat Springs, CO John Red-Horse | Tijeras, NM John Makemson | South Miami, FL STEWARD John Thorup | Tucson, AZ Roger & Barbara Mattison | Denver, CO Anonymous James Walters | Port Angeles, WA Willard Mayo | Baltimore, MD Rose & Peter Edwards | Chevy Chase, MD Kathy & Dennis Wellman | Boulder, CO William McIntyre | Cheyenne, WY Leo Harris & Ann Simms | Albuquerque, NM Bill Wiese | Albuquerque, NM Samuel A. Messam | Clearwater, FL Ken Keller | Tucson, AZ Vincent & Patty Wixon | Ashland, OR Sarah Michael | Sun Valley, ID Auden Schendler & Ellen Freedman | Basalt, CO Joan E. Miller | Seattle, WA William Stankey | Sedona, AZ PATRON John & Barbara Morrison | Castle Pines, CO Anonymous (3) Betty Morrow | Albuquerque, NM GUARANTOR In honor of Gerry Gawne | Seattle, WA Gary & Kathy O’Neal | Portland, OR In honor of Arthur Smidinger | Scarborough, NY In honor of Raymond Haertel | Bend, OR Anne O’Sullivan-Stewartson | Lakewood, CO Heather Abel & Adam Zucker | Northampton, MA In honor of Penny Hill | Grand Junction, CO Bruce Parlette | Aspen, CO Franz Amador & Dorothy Neville | Seattle, WA In memory of Pat Chatfield | Durango, CO Peter Petrie | Aspen, CO Joseph Belli, The Kate Woods Fund | Hollister, CA In memory of Tim Tuthill | Laramie, WY Bill Rau & Susan Roche | Castle Valley, UT Barbara L. Brown | Orcas, WA Joe Alcorn & Sylvia Wittels | Bernalillo, NM Patricia Rauscher | Cortez, CO Dawn Burkhardt | Pasadena, CA James Anderson | Aspen, CO William Riker | Cochiti Lake, NM Tom & Carlyn Jervis | Santa Fe, NM Linda Andes-Georges | Longmont, CO Kathy & Krehe Ritter | Berkeley, CA Linda Johnson | Salt Lake City, UT Greg Arden | Seattle, WA Edward Romero | Santa Fe, NM Susan Kay | Beverly Hills, CA Judy Baker | Boise, ID Bettie Rushing | Albuquerque, NM Jean Reiche | Santa Barbara, CA Mary Ann Barnes | Fort Lauderdale, FL Allen & Susan Rutberg | Holliston, MA Jeff & Nicole Szarzi | Homer, AK Doug Bell & Erika Walther | Oakland, CA Rob & Dianna Sampson | Boise, ID Gael Bissell & Richard Mace | Kalispell, MT Larry Santoro | Greenwich, CT BENEFACTOR Kent Borges & Stephanie Dicenzo | Colorado Springs, CO Eric Schabtach | Eugene, OR In memory of Tara Miller | Elizabeth, CO Joe Brazie | Eugene, OR Russell Scott | Jackson, WY Abby J. Altshuler | Norwood, CO Carl B. Brown | Lava Hot Springs, ID John Scott | Lexington, KY George & Susan Boehlert | Bend, OR Kent & Sherry Brown | Garden City, ID Carol Shanahan | Hailey, ID Thomas Butts | Thornton, CO Lynda M. Caine | Bozeman, MT Becca Smith | Pagosa Springs, CO Thomas Gerstenberger | Denver, CO Bonnie Colby | Tucson, AZ Larry Stephenson & Carolyn Bates | Payson, AZ Richard Heermance | Palo Alto, CA Michael Collette | Boise, ID Nicholas Story | Boulder, CO Nicholas Jacobson | Medford, OR Connie Colter | Placerville, CO Gary Talkington & Rochonne Bria | Grand Canyon, AZ Scott Goodman & Barbara Masoner | Denver, CO Stuart Conway & Janet Bramhall | Fort Collins, CO Richmond & Sarah Thomason | Chelsea, MI Norris & Carolyn Peterson | Sedona, AZ Dave & Char Corkran | Portland, OR Timothy Tracy | Portland, OR Mark Rudd & Marla Painter | Albuquerque, NM Clara & John DeMott | Lake Oswego, OR Joel G. Vignere | Lakeside, MT Loren Cassin Sackett | Lafayette, LA James Donlin | Golden, CO Donald Wallace & Angela Kantola | Littleton, CO Sarah Dry | Philadelphia, PA Dave Walp | Springfield, OR SPONSOR Ken Duell | Princeton, NJ Patricia Walter | Albuquerque, NM Anonymous Leslie Ewy | Louisville, CO Molly Welch | Holladay, UT In honor of Jake Davis | Nederland, CO Bruce Fauskee | Powell, WY William H. Wellman | Santa Barbara, CA In honor of People Caring | Fort Collins, CO Bruce & Jeannette Filippi | Berryton, KS John Whitmer | Bellingham, WA In memory of John Barlow | Delta, CO Thomas & Ann Flack | Sequim, WA Ken Winkes | Conway, WA In memory of Carroll W. Stewart | Santa Fe, NM Barb & Mark Fowler | Durango, CO John C. Wise | Ashland, OR Steve & Ellen Adelson | Tulsa, OK James Geier | Denver, CO R. Zimmerman | Eagle, CO Everett Ayers | Eureka, CA Scott J. Goetz | Flagstaff, AZ Don Bachman & Cathy Cripps | Bozeman, MT Richard Gritman | Sequim, WA FRIEND Grant Barnard | Red Lodge, MT Sheila & Allen Henry | Fountain Hills, AZ Anonymous (4) Kenneth Beck | Liberty, UT Alan T. Herring | Laredo, TX In memory of Tom Bell | Newport Beach, CA Janet Behrens | Cheyenne, WY
26 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Dear Friends
High Country News has a fresh look and a new schedule, but fear not: We’ll keep you up to date on all our doings right here at “Dear Friends.”
It’s the time of year for blizzards and road closures in the high country. But though some of us have been hunkered down indoors, getting the new magazine out to you, others have ventured out on the road, making face-to-face In memory of George & Esther Ferner | Tucson, AZ Sean & Lori McConnor | New Meadows, ID In memory of Kim Lohse | Entiat, WA Amanda McCreadie | Lafayette, CO appearances. In memory of Christine E. Mills | Williams, AZ Janet McEntee | Salt Lake City, UT In December, Associate Editor Tristan In memory of Rob Thomasma | Grand Rapids, MI Ken & Patricia Mesec | Littleton, CO Sarah Adams | Hillsborough, CA Samuel Miller | Eugene, OR Ahtone journeyed to Durango, Colorado, to Vernon Andersen | Bynum, MT William A. Molini | Reno, NV teach a feature-writing workshop to journal- Shannon Auckly | Flagstaff, AZ Tish Morris | Albuquerque, NM ism students at Fort Lewis College. That night, Diana Rue Baird | Pagosa Springs, CO Lisa Mott | Villa Grove, CO Thomas Besser & Kathleen Potter | Moscow, ID Gina Nania | Rapid City, SD Tristan and Associate Editor Paige Blankenbue- Shawn Best | Las Vegas, NV Steven Neff | El Cerrito, CA hler, who is based in Durango, spoke on a panel Paul Bjornstad | Ann Arbor, MI James & Ashley Newell | Erie, CO David T. Bowman | Grass Valley, CA Sandra Phillips | Brecksville, OH about investigative journalism. Diane Brookshire | Denver, CO Zoe Plakias | Columbus, OH It’s also the time of year where we welcome Robert Brown | Datil, NM Douglas Potter | Coeur d’Alene, ID a new cohort of interns and fellows. This round, Jack Buchold | Reno, NV Michael Powers | Berkeley, CA Don Campbell | Grand Junction, CO Relf Price | Los Alamos, NM we’ve invited former intern Helen Santoro to Robert & Carrie Chicken | Yakima, WA Robert Reeves | Montrose, CO become an editorial fellow for the West-North Sharon & Malcolm Clark | Mammoth Lakes, CA David Remington | Moscow, ID David Clark & Linda Faye Rosen | Shawnee, CO Donovan & Phyllis Rieger | Aurora, CO Desk. Kalen Goodluck and Nick Bowlin, our Timothy Cochran | Tucson, AZ Gary Rivedal | Woodland Park, CO current editorial fellows, will stay on at the Ray R. Coffey | Colorado Springs, CO William Roberts | Durango, CO Christine DeChristopher | Easthampton, MA Will Robinson | Douglas, WY Indigenous Affairs Desk and the West-South Allan Doane | San Marcos, TX Roberts A.L. Sargent Jr. | Montrose, CO Desk, respectively. Meanwhile, we’re excited to Alice Dorshow | Catonsville, MD John Santangini | Denver, CO announce two new additions to the magazine. Robert Dozono | Milwaukie, OR Rick Schneider & Diana Pilson | Alexandria, VA Robert Dye & Donna Koster | Kanab, UT Bill Schoenecker | New Castle, CO Leah Sottile, the brilliant reporter behind the Tamara Enz | Portland, OR H. J. & Beverly Schoennagel | Pennington, NJ podcast Bundyville, has joined the West-North Frank Evans | Del Norte, CO Linda & Paul Schutt | Breckenridge, CO Roger France | Buena Vista, CO Sheri Shillinger | Rawlins, WY Desk as a correspondent, and we’re bringing Steven Galipeau | West Hills, CA Susan Shillinglaw | Pacific Grove, CA on a contributing editor for features, McKenna Tim & Mary Gallagher | Leavenworth, WA Donna Shoemaker | Larkspur, CA Stayner, who has returned to the West after five Pete Gang | Petaluma, CA Bruce Sillers | Issaquah, WA Neil & Betty Gest | Issaquah, WA Gary Sims | Evergreen, CO years as an editor at The New Yorker. Vivian Gibson | Delta, CO Kent Slinde | Stanton, ND We have bid adieu to Chris King, our digi- Grant Gladman | San Leandro, CA Karen Smith | Berkeley, CA Richard Gnaedinger | La Porte, IN Sari Stein | Grants, NM tal marketer, but are glad to say he’s still in the Ron Gould | Weimar, CA Tara Stevens | Boise, ID neighborhood; He’s working at Solar Energy Seth Haines | Boulder, CO Jennifer Superka | Denver, CO International just down the street from HCN’s Stuart Halpern | Whitefish, MT Eric Swanson | Seattle, WA Mike Hamilton | Boise, ID Jone Taylor | Blackfoot, ID Paonia, Colorado, headquarters. Good luck, Carol & John Harkness | Teton Village, WY Tim Troy | Ogden, UT Chris! Ryan D. Haugo | Portland, OR Tim & Karen Trulove | Glenwood Springs, CO Jay Henry | West Valley City, UT Virgil Tucker | Boulder, CO One correction: In a recent perspective, we John Hoffman | Sonoita, AZ Teresa A. Ukrainetz | Logan, UT mistakenly referred to Henry George’s famous Shari Hogshead & Paul Gauthier | Bend, OR Stephen Vago | Sterling, VA Robert & Karen Kennedy | Concord, MA Norma Van Nostrand | Longmont, CO book on railroads (“Gilded Age problems – and Torsten Kjellstrand | Eugene, OR John Veranth | Salt Lake City, UT remedies – echo in today’s economy,” 12/9/19); Robert Koreis | Puyallup, WA Benjamin Vicuna | Litchfield, CT its title is Progress and Poverty. We regret the Yvonne Kuperberg | Vashon, WA Tom Viola | Berkeley, CA Leon H. Lebman | Bozeman, MT Carl & Linda Wagner | Whitewater, WI error. Tim Libassi | Wilson, WY Luann Sewell Waters | Wynnewood, OK —Helen Santoro, for the staff Nancy & Karl Lillquist | Ellensburg, WA Jeffrey Webster | Green Valley, AR Bob Linck & Leanne Klyza-Linck | Hinesburg, VT Edward Widmann | Denver, CO John Linstrom | Polson, MT Dee Dee Wieggel | Fort Collins, CO Eric & Suellen Lodge | Solana Beach, CA Ralph E. Wiggen | Los Angeles, CA Ingrid A. Louiselle | Cornelius, OR Stephen Wilder | Willow, NY Fred Malo | Carbondale, CO Cletus Williamson | San Jose, CA Tom & Barb Macgillivray | Windsor, CO Tad McCall | Arlington, VA
JANUARY 2020 27 By Ben Goldfarb CROSSING TO SAFETY
28 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS IMAGE
HOW A FIGHT OVER ROADKILL TURNED INTO A REFERENDUM ON GOVERNMENT CONTROL
Bradly J. Boner for High Country News / Jean Bjerke on U.S. 20 near the summit of Targhee Pass on the Idaho/Montana border. Bjerke has been a vocal proponent of wildlife passage structures for the area, where numerous wildlife-vehicle collisions have occurred.
JANUARY 2020 29 Chris Rodocker / DroneWolf Media for High Country News / U.S. 20 climbs Targhee Pass near Island Park, Idaho. Collisions with wildlife caused at least 94 vehicle crashes along a 56-mile section of the highway in the early 2010s.
HE LONGEST MAIN STREET IN AMERICA begins at the south- collisions nationwide. Over the ern limits of Island Park, Idaho, and ends an eyelash west of the Mon- last two decades, researchers have tana border. On a map of Fremont County, Island Park has the profile converged on a solution palatable of an immense shoelace — 36.8 miles long and, in many places, just to politicians on both sides of the 500 feet wide. The town’s main street is its spine, the thoroughfare aisle: wildlife crossings, tunnels that connects everything with everything else: It’s how Island Park’s and bridges that funnel creatures 270 year-round residents, along with its thousands of seasonals, get under and over highways. If roads to Harriman State Park and the TroutHunter fly shop and 500 miles are habitat-sundering gashes, of snowmobile trails. It’s also a segment of America’s longest road, crossings are the stitches that sew U.S. 20, a federal highway that meanders from Newport, Oregon, to up rent landscapes. In the three Boston, Massachusetts. More than a million vehicles speed past Is- years after the Wyoming Depart- land Park each year, many conveying tourists to Yellowstone, which ment of Transportation installed lies beyond the Continental Divide. Eastbound trucks tote lettuce eight crossings near Pinedale in T from California; westbounders slosh with Bakken crude. To Island 2012, for instance, some 40,000 Park, U.S. 20 is a lifeline. To most of America, it’s a conduit. mule deer and 19,000 pronghorn For Idaho’s wildest inhabitants, it can also be a death trap. Elk safely navigated U.S. 191. traverse the highway as they descend from mountain redoubts to So when the Idaho Transpor- winter range on the Snake River Plain, then return on the crest of tation Department began contem- spring’s green wave. Moose cross U.S. 20 on their way to browse near plating wildlife overpasses along the quartz folds of the St. Anthony Sand Dunes. Mule deer, grizzlies U.S. 20 in 2016, you could forgive and pronghorn all ford the asphalt river, and some perish in the at- local conservationists for expect- tempt. Between 2010 and 2014, animals caused 94 vehicle crashes ing the proposal to meet smooth along a 56-mile stretch of U.S. 20. Because most collisions go unre- sailing. Instead, the crossings in- ported, the real body count is even higher: According to state sur- spired a fierce debate about the veys, 138 ungulates died on U.S. 20 and a connected 9-mile stretch of future of U.S. 20, an argument that State Highway 87 in 2018 alone. pitted conservation’s burgeoning Such car-inflicted carnage is not unique to Idaho. More than a emphasis on large-scale habitat million large animals, and around 200 drivers, die annually from connectivity against the rural
30 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS West’s long-standing desire to ex- which accounted for nearly a the West, and everybody is going ert local control over land man- “Never has quarter of Targhee Pass’ crashes along this path,” Rinaldi said. agement. The controversy has (none of them fatal, at least for That trend is driven by finan- bewildered more than one observ- anybody humans). Swelling tourism would cial motives as well as ecological er. “In my world, I look at wildlife only exacerbate the danger: While ones. Collisions not only kill valu- crossings as a win-win situation,” said, ‘Not just 5,600 vehicles navigated the able game animals, they often re- Patricia Cramer, the transporta- pass daily in July 2012, the agency sult in property damage and even tion ecologist who first recom- in my forecast summer traffic to reach hospital bills. Marcel Huijser, a mended the U.S. 20 overpasses, 9,400 cars a day by 2042. research ecologist at the Western told me. “Never has anybody said, backyard.’ As traffic intensified, conser- Transportation Institute, has esti- ‘Not in my backyard.’ Nobody says vationists feared U.S. 20 could mated that each North American I don’t want a wildlife crossing.” Nobody says eventually truncate wildlife move- deer crash costs society around Nobody, that is, until Island ment. In Idaho and elsewhere, $6,600, elk $17,500, and moose Park. I don’t want busy highways chronically thwart more than $30,000. Virtually every mule deer and elk migrations — Western state has jumped on the ONE BLUEBIRD MORNING in Sep- a wildlife a threat that’s more subtle than crossing bandwagon: There’s the tember, I chugged north on U.S. roadkill, but, in some cases, more $5 million Parleys Summit bridge 20 in a procession of RVs, camp- crossing.” ruinous. “Herds can take a couple in Utah, the $6.2 million Sno- ervans and Subarus back-loaded of hits on the road,” Kathy Rinaldi, qualmie Pass arch in Washington, with mountain bikes — the West’s Idaho conservation coordinator and the $87 million overpass that recreational economy loose on the for the Greater Yellowstone Coali- may someday assist cougars over land. The highway slipped from tion, told me. “But if they can’t get California’s U.S. 101. A highway sagebrush flats to lodgepole for- to their winter or summer range, bill introduced in July 2019 by Sen. ests and back, occasionally do-si- that’s when they start to die off.” John Barrasso, R-Wyo., included doing with the glittering course of The Idaho Transportation De- $250 million for still more passag- the Henrys Fork River. The speed partment had long recognized U.S. es. As Ed Arnett, chief scientist at limit plunged from 65 to 45 mph 20’s wildlife dilemma. In 2009, the the nonprofit Theodore Roosevelt as the road passed through clus- agency partnered with the state’s Conservation Partnership, put it to ters of gas stations and cabins, Department of Fish and Game and me: “How can you say no to saving though the signs felt more like the Wildlife Conservation Soci- wildlife, preventing accidents, and suggestions — everyone in a hur- ety to study animal movements reducing insurance costs?” ry to get to a trailhead or a fishing around the highway, affixing satel- hole, anywhere besides where lite collars to 37 elk and 42 moose. WHEN, AT 8:30 on a Wednesday they already were. Six years later, the department morning, I entered the dining room North of town, the road began hired Patricia Cramer, who’d con- of the Lakeside Lodge, a strenuous- to climb. The land tightened, crin- sulted on road projects in Utah, ly rustic resort several miles off U.S. kling as though squeezed by a gi- Washington, Florida and other 20, Ken Watts was halfway through ant fist, as the highway wound out states, to convert that research his pancakes. Watts — local gadfly, of the Island Park caldera — the into action. Cramer pored over prolific newspaper columnist and vast volcanic footprint planted crash data, conferred with agency bête noire of Fremont County’s more than a million years earlier staff and environmentalists, and conservationists — had greeted my by the Yellowstone hotspot — and analyzed the movements of the emailed appeal for an interview into the Henrys Lake Mountains. collared critters. In the end, she with skepticism. The Island Park Whippy poles marked snowmo- identified a litany of fixes, includ- Preservation Coalition, or IPPC, a bile trails. This tortuous 4-mile ing 16 potential crossings scat- group he chairs whose ethos is to stretch was Targhee Pass, and it tered along the highway’s length. “keep Island Park like it is,” even was the source of the trouble. Three wildlife bridges, she sug- held a meeting to debate my re- Like much of America’s ag- gested, could span Targhee Pass. quest. At last, Watts and several ing infrastructure, the roadbed In July 2016, the Idaho Trans- others agreed to speak to me. Giv- at Targhee Pass is gradually dete- portation Department invited the en their partially consumed break- riorating, afflicted by icing, frost Henrys Fork Legacy Project, a col- fasts, I wondered whether they’d heaves and poor drainage. In the lection of agency and nonprofit arrived early for a last-minute me- fall of 2016, under the National representatives, to review a draft dia strategy session. Environmental Policy Act, the of Cramer’s report. The group Watts, whose knee-length Idaho Transportation Department liked the ecologist’s Targhee Pass cargo shorts, trim white beard and the Federal Highway Admin- recommendations, and several of and amiable manner gave him istration began studying how best its members, including Rinaldi, the mien of a retiree on a cruise, to remedy the section’s problems penned a letter urging the agency proved as voluble in person as — among them wildlife collisions, to act on them. “You look around he’d been apprehensive over
JANUARY 2020 31 Bradly J. Boner for High Country News / Traffic on Highway 191 passes through the tunnel of a wildlife overpass near Pinedale, Wyoming. In the three years after the Wyoming Department of Transportation installed this and seven other crossings in the area, tens of thousands of mule deer and pronghorn successfully crossed.
email. An improbable spokesman day?’ ” Watts told me. “I hope I’m County’s commissioners to put green that vault over highways for a group that denounced fed- provoking thought.” the question to an advisory vote, a with a Middle Earthish grace. Yet eral overreach, Watts had worked The roots of Island Park’s nonbinding election gauging pop- crossings work best in concert for 34 years as an engineer at the overpass saga, Watts said, were ular opinion. The monument was with a less elegant technology: Department of Energy’s Idaho entangled with a separate, pre- summarily crushed. roadside fences, which funnel an- National Laboratory, where he’d vious drama. In 2013, the Idaho Galvanized by victory, Watts imals away from the highway and developed tests to assay other na- Statesman unearthed documents and others formed the Island Park toward passages. tions’ chemical weapons. In 2006, showing that the George W. Bush Preservation Coalition to stave String some fencing through he and his wife, Patsy, began administration had explored cre- off other unwanted impositions the Nevada desert, and no one building a cabin in Island Park, ating a national monument in the that could, in theory, change the complains about impaired views. and moved there full-time in 2010. area years earlier. Local officials, community’s character. At first, At the base of Targhee Pass, though, Before long, he fell into politics surmising that Barack Obama’s the group didn’t perceive wildlife squats a subdivision called Big and eventually opinion-writing, Interior Department could revive crossings as such a threat. When Horn Hills Estates, whose res- penning a column called “Ken’s the idea, used federal funding to Kim Trotter, U.S. program director idents weren’t keen to see wo- Korner” in the Island Park News, study the impacts of a possible for a wildlife group called the Yel- ven-wire barriers running near a weekly paper that bills itself as protected area and discussed the lowstone-to-Yukon Conservation their dream properties. In one “CERTIFIED Politically incorrect matter with conservationists. Al- Initiative, touted overpasses at an op-ed, homeowners named Ralph and 100% American.” For a time, though a monument was never IPPC meeting in September 2016, and Connie Kincheloe vented that the News’ publisher labeled him imminent, Watts resented what she met a cordial reception. The fencing would force them “to live its ace reporter, depicting him in he considered an opaque process, peace, however, would not keep. like animals in a virtual prison.” a Gay Talese-style fedora. “Every alluding in the Island Park News There is something at once By the time I met the IPPC for week I ask myself, ‘What should to a “covert plan” to establish one. futuristic and anachronistic about breakfast, the group’s anti-cross- the people of Island Park know to- In 2014, he encouraged Fremont wildlife overpasses, parabolas of ing angst had expanded to fill a
32 JANUARYHIGH COUNTRY 2020 NEWS thick file labeled “Grievances/ range solution.” toward in a state agency soliciting Concerns”. Its members were wor- One right- The IPPC’s most vocal spar- outside expertise. “My position,” ried about the visual impact: “The ring partner was Jean Bjerke, a Watts rejoined, “is that the state view of Island Park from the top of wing blogger nature photographer who’d built a of Idaho should never accept data Targhee Pass is spectacular, and home in Island Park with her hus- from an organization that is biased to disrupt that aesthetic beauty wrote that band, Randy, in 2000. “I thought, and prejudiced and has an agenda.” with overpasses and fences just when I retired, I would settle into a seems to be counterproductive,” the wild- quiet life of photography and tend OFTEN, UNFOUNDED specula- said Bob Stantus, a retired U.S. Air my garden,” Bjerke, who’d grown tion stoked the argument’s flames. Force officer, to nods around the life passage up organizing civil rights protests Throughout 2017, the Island Park table. They were also concerned during the tumultuous 1960s, told News reposted articles by Karen about the price tag: To more structures me. Instead, Bjerke flung herself Schumacher, a blogger for right- nods, a lawyer named Steve Em- into the cause, writing op-eds and wing sites like Redoubt News and ery said that Idaho’s dilapidated were conducting social media outreach Gem State Patriot. Schumacher, infrastructure had more pressing for a pro-crossing coalition called who had roots in Island Park, as- needs. (The Idaho Transportation insidious the Island Park Safe Wildlife Pas- serted that the overpasses were a Department estimated that build- sage Initiative, which eventually red herring: The structures, she ing and maintaining the fences tools for the evolved into a nonprofit called the wrote, were insidious tools for the and overpasses would cost nearly Henrys Fork Wildlife Alliance. dispossession of private proper- $500,000 a year spread over three dispossession Over months, Bjerke watched ty, the vanguard of a “systematic decades.) And, although the agen- the invective spread from the agenda to alter where and how we cy had held three public meetings of private News to Facebook to the real world. live.” and convened a working group, in- “I became appalled at the polar- Like many hyperbolic claims, cluding Watts, to discuss the proj- property, the ization of the community,” Bjerke Schumacher’s grew from a germ ect, IPPC members were irate that said. Meetings turned combative; of misinterpreted truth. Beginning consultation hadn’t begun years vanguard neighbors stopped speaking; em- in the 1980s, conservationists have earlier, when the state first start- ployees who supported crossings increasingly focused on connect- ed studying elk and moose move- of a “system- were allegedly hushed by bosses. ing swaths of land through which ments. “We felt like we weren’t be- Facts themselves — annual road- animals can freely roam, habitat ing treated fairly as a community,” atic agenda kill statistics, for instance — be- linkages called wildlife corridors. Watts said, to the most nods of all. came objects of partisan dispute. In 2008, the Path of the Pronghorn, They experienced the fiercest to alter “There didn’t seem to be any mid- a migration route through Wyo- anxiety, though, over public-land dle ground, and there was a ton of ming, became the country’s first access. The transportation agen- where and misinformation,” Todd Lanning, a federally designated corridor, and cy had insisted that gates in the burly fishing guide who supported bills that would establish a nation- fencing would permit hunters and how we live.” the overpasses, told me. al corridor system are currently snowmobilers to reach trails un- In “Ken’s Korner,” Watts tog- idling in the U.S. House and Senate. impeded, but Watts didn’t buy it. gled between stridency and comi- Schumacher perceived sinister For overpasses to work, he point- ty, referring to his “conservation intent in this turn toward connec- ed out, animals have to feel safe friends” and pushing to reduce the tivity: Corridors would “be used to using them — which suggested speed limit (a measure the Trans- justify placing Island Park into a to him that human travel would portation Department dismissed massive, large scale, conservation be restricted. Gates, he claimed, as incompatible with the road’s area” — a scheme, she wrote in “would defeat the whole purpose.” design speed). But he also railed other posts, with United Nations Watts’ Island Park News col- against the influence of environ- backing. Watts shared her alarm, umn gave him a powerful plat- mental groups. “We cannot let 3 opining that the corridor bill was form to oppose the overpasses. or 4 people from Driggs, Bozeman, “FAR worse” than the Antiquities Beginning in early 2017, he and Le- Boise, Missoula, etc. determine Act, the law presidents use to des- anne Yancey, another outspoken our future,” he wrote. Among oth- ignate national monuments. IPPC member, inveighed against er objections, Watts took umbrage The angriest diatribes, pre- the crossings weekly, predicting at conservationists’ input in the dictably, were directed at the the structures would “desecrate” 2016 study that recommended the group promoting the largest cor- Island Park and “destroy the beau- overpasses, as well as at the meet- ridor: the Yellowstone-to-Yukon ty of the natural gap God carved ings the state held with the Henrys Conservation Initiative, or Y2Y, between the rugged mountains.” Fork Legacy Project before com- which promotes habitat con- Their missives were countered mencing public discussion about nectivity between Yellowstone by the crossings’ supporters, who the Targhee Pass repairs. Playing National Park and the Canadian defended the bridges as “the most devil’s advocate, I suggested that Yukon. In Alberta, Canada, Mon- logical and cost-effective long- perhaps there was nothing un- tana and elsewhere, Y2Y has pur-
JANUARY 2020 33 sued wildlife crossings without Yancey griped in the Island Park bureaucratic clothing.” sparking controversy; in Island News, Island Park’s overpasses The West’s most dogged ad- Park, though, its grand dream be- hadn’t “originated from within vocate for coordination is the came a target. “If overpasses are the community of people who re- American Stewards of Liberty, a built ... Y2Y will then advocate the ally do live here.” While the U.S. 20 Texas-based group helmed by corridor is classified as a protect- crossings had many local support- Margaret Byfield — the daughter ed area,” Schumacher theorized. ers as well as detractors — one res- of Wayne Hage, a Nevada ranch- “The area surrounding a corridor, ident named Bonnie Altshuld told er who waged a lifelong battle or buffer, will also require restrict- me overpasses were “a no-brainer” against federal grazing restric- ed or banned use.” — its most prominent nonprofit tions. Fremont is among many To Y2Y’s Kim Trotter, the at- boosters were headquartered out- counties whose representatives tacks felt not only specious, but side Fremont County. As more have attended the group’s work- personal. I met Trotter at an out- than one conservationist who’d shops. And in early 2018, its com- door cafe near her home in Driggs, observed the situation from afar missioners heard a presentation Idaho — a town that lies not in Fre- summarized it to me: wrong mes- from Fred Kelly Grant, the direc- mont County, but in comparatively sage, wrong messengers. tor of the Americans Coordination liberal, Patagonia-swaddled Teton Institute, a group whose goal is County, whose eponymous moun- ONE AFTERNOON, I visited Fre- to “restore local government to its tains loomed knife-sharp in the mont County’s colossal brick rightful place.” Two months after near distance. Trotter spoke in the courthouse to speak with Lee Mill- Grant encouraged the county to deliberate cadence of a public fig- er, the county commission’s chair, invoke coordination, the commis- ure who’s accustomed to having her a timber industry veteran who, at sion demanded that state and fed- every word scrutinized, but she’d 73, still takes an elk every autumn. eral agencies “pause all actions” also preserved a wry sense of hu- Like Watts, Miller told me the state on U.S. 20 until they’d properly mor: “I wish my kids thought I had had “blindsided” Fremont County consulted with the county. as much power as the IPPC does,” by pursuing long-term wildlife On July 30, 2018, Fremont she said. Although the overpasses’ studies without formally notify- County’s commissioners took lo- foes tarred her as a carpetbagger, ing the commission. “We sent out cal control a step further: They she’d spent years working for local letters, both federal and state, say- elected to put overpasses to an lodges, land trusts and community ing we require coordination in this advisory vote on that fall’s ballot, Bradly J. Boner for High Country foundations; her parents, she told News / A box for the Island county when an agency is going to the same strategy that, four years me, are “good Fremont County Re- Park News, which bills itself as do something,” he said. “When earlier, had torpedoed a national publicans” who have lived in Island “CERTIFIED Politically incorrect and this thing very first started, we monument. The vote’s outcome 100% American.” The newspaper Park for three decades. publishes Kenneth Watts’ column should have been at the table.” wouldn’t hold legal water, but it The notion that Y2Y hoped to “Ken’s Corner,” which helped rally The view that agencies are would wield powerful influence. turn eastern Idaho into a protected opposition to the wildlife passage obliged to coordinate with coun- In an election earlier that year, structures. area, Trotter said, was a fundamen- ties is a potent one in the West. voters in North Idaho’s Bonner tal misrepresentation of its mission. The notion stems from a provision County had rejected a wilderness Y2Y is less a discrete migration in the Federal Land Policy and area in the Scotchman Peaks, the route than a conceptual umbrella Management Act directing the range that towers over Lake Pend under which dozens of partners Bureau of Land Management to Oreille, by a 54-46% margin. To plan connectivity projects, most of coordinate its planning activities environmentalists’ chagrin, Sen. which entail voluntary work with with states, tribes and local gov- Jim Risch, R-Idaho, deferred to private landowners through initia- ernments; other agencies’ laws, popular opinion and withdrew his tives like conservation easements, including the Federal Highway support for the wilderness. wildlife-friendly fencing and Administration’s, contain similar Wildlife passage advocates bear-proof livestock management. language. What that means de- had good reason to fear a similar “Large landscape connectivity is pends on whom you ask. Although outcome in Fremont County. Many protecting our way of life in eastern some legal scholars refute this in- of the overpasses’ staunchest de- Idaho,” Trotter said. terpretation, county commissions fenders were registered to vote else- Even so, it’s not surprising that in Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming and where; Jean Bjerke, for example, the theme of large-scale conserva- other states have demanded equal winters in Cedar City, Utah. Such tion played poorly in a community footing with federal agencies in migrants might contribute sub- already wary of outside influence. decisions ranging from grazing stantially to Island Park’s tax base In Teton County, where voters re- permit allocations to road clo- and love the town deeply — but, cently allotted $10 million for new sures. Coordination, wrote High from the ballot’s standpoint, they wildlife crossings, roadkill-con- Country News in 2015, is a legalis- were invisible. Pro-crossing sea- cerned residents had launched tic approach to timeless anti-fed- sonals wrote the Island Park News the initiative. By contrast, Leanne eralism, a “Sagebrush Rebellion in to bemoan their disenfranchise-
34 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS ment; in “Ken’s Korner,” Watts for instance, an ADS slashed col- the Western Transportation Insti- countered that foes of the vote lisions by 82%. In Idaho, though, tute’s Marcel Huijser told me that wanted to silence legitimate locals. such systems have fallen victim detection systems are still consid- The IPPC mounted a campaign that to their own complexity. In 2013, ered “experimental,” and that they impressed even its adversaries, gar- the state’s Transportation Depart- remain plagued with technolog- nering endorsements from every ment installed an ADS on U.S. 95 ical, maintenance and manage- county elected official, the Cham- near Bonners Ferry. Although ment problems. “Almost none are ber of Commerce, and the district’s the system proved reliable, Brice in place for more than a few years,” representatives in the state House Sloan, the contractor who de- Huijser said. “If the main objec- and Senate. Although Bjerke and signed it, told me the state didn’t tive is to solve a practical problem, her allies rallied their own troops, seem to have the “interest or abil- then an Animal Detection System by the time Nov. 6, 2018, arrived, ity” to maintain it. Five years lat- has a super-high risk of failure.” they knew it was over. The results er, Sloan bought his creation back. And while Animal Detection were definitive: 78% of the elector- Today, it sits in his Boise office. Systems may reduce roadkill, they ate had rejected overpasses. Since then, Sloan said, an- don’t make crossing the highway imal detection technology has any more appealing to wildlife. THE VOTE MAY HAVE BEEN legally improved: Machine-learning, for Norris Dodd, a road ecologist who moot, but it proved politically de- instance, has made software bet- Bradly J. Boner for High Country designed an ADS on Arizona’s cisive. When, two months later, the ter at distinguishing an elk from News / Kim Trotter, U.S. program State Route 260, found that, while director for the Yellowstone-to-Yukon Idaho Transportation Department an SUV. Stark concurred, telling Conservation Initiative, which was the warning lights reduced mo- released its environmental assess- me that ineffective designs had working to build wildlife passages torist speed as intended, animals ment for the Targhee Pass repairs, been “largely abandoned,” and on Targhee Pass. Trotter was among often judged the road a barrier those painted as an outsider, despite it spurned overpasses in favor of a that the state planned to install “a three decades of family ties to the anyway. The system “doesn’t ad- cheaper solution called an Animal state-of-the-art system.” Even so, community. dress connectivity,” Dodd told me. Detection System, or ADS — an “When the traffic is high, the elk array of radar stations that would just come to the road, turn around activate flashing warning signs and leave.” Some try again late at whenever a creature rambled onto night; others may never reach the the road. With money tight, the habitat they set out for. Wildlife agency reasoned, funding should crossings and fencing, by contrast, go first toward road stretches physically separate animals from with higher documented collision the road, permitting them to move rates than Targhee Pass. It also without waiting for a traffic break. observed that the largest wildlife The advantages of overpasses migrations happen during lightly would not have surprised the Ida- trafficked shoulder seasons, di- ho Transportation Department. In minishing the need for crossings. late 2018, the Greater Yellowstone But it acknowledged that Coalition filed a records request politics had played a role, too. that turned up a draft report au- “Local elected officials have com- thored by Renee Seidler, a trans- municated that they do not portation specialist at the Idaho support wildlife crossings and Department of Fish and Game. Se- fencing,” the assessment stated. idler had calculated that fencing (Megan Stark, a spokesperson for and overpasses at Targhee Pass the Transportation Department, would prevent enough accidents told me in an email that, while the to effectively pay for themselves agency had indeed considered in- in as few as 20 years. (When the fi- put from public officials, the advi- nal report was published, it didn’t sory vote “did not have an impact contain Seidler’s calculations, on our decision.”) which, according to Stark, weren’t Lee Miller, the Fremont com- consistent with the Transporta- mission chair, told me the Trans- tion Department’s own methods portation Department made the for tabulating costs.) Fish and “right decision.” Scientists are Game, Seidler concluded, “rec- less confident. While crossings ommends three wildlife crossing and fences reliably cut roadkill overpasses with wildlife fencing … by more than 80%, detection sys- for the length of the project area.” tems are a riskier bet. Some cer- The report proved yet another tainly succeed: In Switzerland, Rorschach test. For Watts, Seidler’s
JANUARY 2020 35 background — she’d published to Island Park, though, it’s also active. In June 2019, Ed Schriever, studies on the effectiveness of a federal highway trafficked by director of the Idaho Department crossing structures while working more than a million travelers a of Fish and Game, nixed a wildlife for the Wildlife Conservation Soci- year and maintained with federal migration lecture series sched- ety — constituted further evidence funding. Should a town with fewer uled for Island Park and neighbor- that environmental interests had than 300 year-round residents, or ing towns, according to an email I infiltrated Idaho’s agencies. To the even a county with 13,000, shape received through a public records Greater Yellowstone Coalition’s a vital national artery? What is U.S. request. “Stand down on addition- Kathy Rinaldi, the report demon- 20, anyway — Island Park’s main al conversations on wildlife move- strated that the state had priori- street, or the country’s longest ment, corridors, and safe passage tized politics over science. federal highway? Can it be both? in eastern Idaho, regardless of in- “I think it was easy for them The balance, for now, seems vite or desire,” Schriever directed to be like, wow, this thing just got tipped toward main street. In staff. In an email, Schriever told really controversial and hot,” she early 2019, the Idaho Republican me he canceled the talks to make told me, “and we don’t want to Party resolved to oppose all over- sure his agency’s outreach was deal.” passes in Fremont County, claim- “constructive to the US 20 process” ing the structures would restrict and “recognized the local commu- TODAY, AN ANIMAL DETECTION public-land access and funnel ani- nity’s advisory vote.” System at Targhee Pass, rather mals toward “kill zones” for preda- Elsewhere in Idaho, though, than overpasses, seems a fait ac- tors (a fear that’s belied by studies crossings have surged forward. In compli. Stark told me that the Ida- in Canada’s Banff National Park). February 2019, the Boise City Coun- ho Transportation Department The state’s House of Representa- cil greenlit the state’s first overpass, expects to issue its final decision tives followed suit, formally urging a $3.2 million bridge over Highway in spring 2020, but won’t break the U.S. Congress to “ensure that Mark Gocke / A pickup is loaded 21. On U.S. 30, the state intends to ground on the Targhee Pass re- stakeholders are quickly and fully onto a tow truck after it collided with construct a $5.5 million crossing at pairs, which include widening the informed whenever wildlife cross- a cow elk on Wyoming Highway 89 a chronic mule deer collision site, north of Jackson, Wyoming. Several road and fixing its drainage, un- ing infrastructure is proposed.” elk are hit and killed along this a project that has the approval of til 2026. Meanwhile, Y2Y and its And the issue remains radio- stretch of highway each year. Bear Lake County’s commissioners. partners have largely moved on. And Island Park’s conservationists “Honestly, since the advisory vote, haven’t given up: In 2018, home- we’ve said, ‘Let’s go work in places owners in a subdivision called across the state where there is en- Pinehaven urged the transporta- ergy for good conservation work,’ ” tion department to consider cross- Kim Trotter told me in Driggs. For ings along other stretches of U.S. 20, his part, Lee Miller said the ordeal including a roadkill hotspot called had strengthened Fremont Coun- Ashton Hill, as it continues repairs. ty’s relationship with both the Several IPPC members told me transportation department and they might have supported an un- federal agencies like the Forest derpass there before the fracas be- Service. “Because of what hap- gan; now, though, Watts said that pened, we have better coordina- any crossing proposal could trigger tion with all of them,” he said. an advisory vote. Yet the tensions the fight For now, roadkill on U.S. 20 provoked seem destined to lin- continues apace, the inevitable ger. Gaining the ability to govern byproduct of our accelerated life- public lands locally is among the styles and wildlife’s compulsion rural West’s longest-held causes, to roam. On Aug. 24, 2019, a week the impetus for countless scuffles before my visit, a truck towing a over federal forest plans and mon- camper met a black bear as the ument declarations and grazing creature darted across the highway restrictions. Reconnecting the at Ashton Hill, clipping the ursid Northern Rockies’ fragmented and dragging it for some distance. habitats, meanwhile, is a vast re- The collision left fur snagged on gional problem that, by definition, the camper’s stairs and the bear requires high-level oversight. Biol- spread-eagled in the road. “No one ogy dictates that our conservation in the truck was injured,” wrote the efforts must broaden, even as our Rexburg Standard-Journal, “and politics become more parochial. the family expressed sorrow that For all that U.S. 20 means the bear had been killed.”
36 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Business Opportunities Water Conservation Director — The Water Conservation Director Conservationist? Irrigable will primarily be responsible for land? — Stellar seed-saving NGO effective and efficient management is available to serious partner. of the organization’s water program Package must include financial activities, including acquiring water support. Details: http://seeds. from willing sellers, overseeing ojaidigital.net. staff in the acquisition of water rights and overseeing the legal and monitoring actions required to Employment ensure acquired water is protected instream to Walker River and Walker Trout Unlimited Wild Steelhead Lake. 775-463-9887. amy.gladding@ Initiative Advocate — The Wild walkerbasin.org. https://www. Steelhead Initiative Advocate leads walkerbasin.org/join-our-team advocacy work in Washington state to protect and restore wild Seeking Philanthropy Director — steelhead. This entails advocating Wilderness Workshop seeks a full- policies and management that time Philanthropy Director to raise will achieve wild steelhead funds for our team. Learn more: conservation goals and provide www.wildernessworkshop.org. sustainable wild steelhead angling opportunities in priority river Arizona Wildlife Federation — basins. The position will be based Seeking an energetic in western Washington, preferably Communications Coordinator to in or within a reasonable driving help manage our social media, distance of Olympia. See www. digital and print communications. tu.org for complete job description www.azwildlife.org. and how to apply.
EV Senior Policy Analyst — Merchandise Western Resource Advocates seeks a strategic and experienced Western Native Seed — relationship builder to join our Specializing in native seeds and growing team as an EV Senior seed mixes for Western states. 719- Policy Analyst. This new role 942-3935. www.westernnativeseed. is an exciting opportunity to com. shape state-level transportation electrification policy and build a Lunatec Hydration Spray Bottle low-carbon transportation system Clean off, cool off and drink. in the Intermountain West. https:// Multiple spray patterns. Better than westernresourceadvocates.org/ you imagine. Try it. careers/EV-senior-policy-analyst/. www.lunatecgear.com.
Arizona Wildlife Federation is Expedition Earth Cruiser FX for seeking a Development Director to sale — Overland vehicle for long lead our fundraising and planned distance travel on or off road. Fully giving programs. See the full job self-contained. Less than 25,000 description at www.azwildlife.org. miles. Located in Redmond, Ore. Offered at $225,000. Call 541-526- Executive Director — 5164. The Montana Wildlife Federation seeks an energetic leader to advance our mission, sustain our Professional Services operations and grow our grassroots power. For a full position Expert Land Steward — Available description, visit now for site conservator, property montanawildlife.org. manager. View résumé at http:// skills.ojaidigital.net.
JANUARY 2020 37 38 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Publications & Books Electric Mountain, Paonia, Colo. — Only two lots left in Chuck Burr's Culturequake.com Electric Mountain Recreational Change will happen when we see a Subdivision. Spectacular vistas. new way of living. Thinking to save Visit and dine at the reopened the world. Electric Mountain Lodge, Thursday-Sunday. Contact: ira@ The Book of Barley — Collector’s yatesconservation.com. item! The story of barley, the field crop; 50 years from nonfiction For sale : South Austin, Texas research. www.barleybook.com. ranch next to Wildflower Center — Seeking LMP/family to share one of two complexes, Real Estate For Rent ranching, hunting and recreation as allowed on a city of Austin-held Coming to Tucson? — Popular 385-acre water quality conservation vacation house, furnished, two- easement. Tranquil, yet in town. bed, one-bath, yard, dog-friendly. You'll get it when you experience it. Lee: [email protected]. 520-791-9246. Qualified buyers only; $3.5 million. It's about the land and location. Contact: Ira@Yatesconservation. Real Estate for Sale com.
Ojo Caliente commercial Best of the mountains and venture — Outstanding location valley — This foothill location near the world-famous Ojo Caliente in the village of Placitas between Mineral Spring Resort. Classic Albuquerque and Santa Fe has adobe mercantile complete with fabulous views as well as orchard, living quarters, separate six-unit vineyard and cottonwood B&B, metal building and spacious trees. Five developed lots with grounds. 505-470-2892, wimettre@ underground power, natural gas newmexico.com, wimettrealty.com. and shared well water. Thoughtful covenants with a gated entry. 505- Secluded Montana property — 263-3662. [email protected] Unique 42-acre property with lapuertallc.com. amazing views near Helena, Mont.. Timber-framed 48-by-36 shop with Everland Mountain Retreat — 12-foot doors, plumbing, heat and 300 acres with mountaintop electric, well and septic. Nice mix lodge. Nonprofit relocating. www. of fir and pine. Game trails for elk everlandmountainretreat.com. and deer, and hunting is permitted. Live in the heated shop while Prime commercial you complete your dream home. opportunity — Nogales. Three Andy O., broker, 406-431-7756. active lower spaces and upper floor [email protected] https:// with potential. 520-245-9000. www.helenahomebuyer.com. [email protected]. 6780 ThreeMile Road.
Gila Wilderness, two properties Tours & Travel Organic farm, hot springs, San Francisco River runs through both. Copper Canyon, Mexico — [email protected]. flow@ Camping, hiking, backpacking, sanfranciscoriver.com. R2R2R, Tarahumara Easter, Mushroom Festival, www. New Mexico — 43 acres in the Gila coppercanyontrails.org. National Forest. Horse facility, custom home. Year-round outdoor living. REDUCED to $999,000, 575- 536-3109.
JANUARY 2020 39 WEST OBSESSED Americanism with an assumption of white supremacy. In October 1971, when he was governor of Cali- fornia, Reagan called former Pres- ident Richard Nixon to disparage Worse for wear an African delegation to the United Nations as “monkeys … still uncom- What the cowboy hat says about ‘Americanism.’ fortable wearing shoes.” Like his fellow California conser- BY BRIAN CALVERT vative, Miller developed his own idea of “Americanism” and he has clearly decided whom it includes. But if white extremism is having a THE CHIEF ARCHITECT OF support for white nationalism, discover his “vigorous manliness.” moment, so, too, is a new wave of President Donald Trump’s anti-im- which emerged as far back as high Many conservatives have since cowboy campiness, as public figures migration agenda is a 34-year- school, when he railed against sought to promote the cowboy of all stripes claim their place as old man from California named classmates who “lacked basic image as truly American: tough, Americans. Rapper Lil Nas X dons Stephen Miller. The great-grand- English skills” in the school paper. male, white. Perhaps no politician a cowboy hat and Western wear son of Jewish immigrants, Miller Plenty of American politicians has benefited more from this prop in the video of “Old Town Road,” graduated from Santa Monica High have used cowboy hats to signal than Ronald Reagan. An actor in melding pop and country into a School, in Los Angeles County. In their preference for a certain Western movies like 1953’s Law and chart-topping hit. The singer Orville his high school yearbook, he poses fantasy America. It is hard to Order, Reagan leveraged that image Peck wears his hats with seductive in a dark cowboy hat and quotes imagine Teddy Roosevelt, a New of Americanism to win over conser- fringed veils, as he croons the story Theodore Roosevelt: “There is Yorker, without his iconic Rough vative voters. Reagan even gave a of two gay hustlers in the Nevada room here for only 100 percent Rider cowboy hat. The 26th pres- cowboy hat to Mikhail Gorbachev desert. With rebellious zeal, glamor Americanism, only for those who ident was, among other things, (who wore it backwards) during and zest, these interpretations of are Americans and nothing else.” a eugenicist with little regard a 1992 visit to Reagan’s ranch an Old West symbol say more about Miller wasn’t the first aspiring for non-white peoples. “Nine- outside Santa Barbara, California. American identity than the likes of politician to use the cowboy hat as teenth-century democracy needs Like Roosevelt, Reagan laced his Miller ever could. a symbol of power and exclusion. In no more complete vindication for fact, the cowboy hat has become a its existence than the fact that it persistent symbol for these, worn has kept for the white race the best to signify who is a real American — portions of the new world’s surface,” and who isn’t. he wrote in 1894. Roosevelt and his To be fair, most people wouldn’t peers went on to create a “virgin” want to be judged by their yearbook wilderness by forcibly removing photos. Miller, however, went on the Bannock, Crow, Shoshone and to help design Trump’s anti-Mus- other Indigenous groups from the lim travel ban and a policy that land to create Yellowstone National separated thousands of migrant Park, even as the Blackfeet were children from their parents at the displaced to create Glacier National U.S-Mexico border. He has earned Park. Such places, Roosevelt said, condemnation from civil rights allowed for a person (presumably groups for his intolerance and his one in the right kind of hat) to If white extremism is having a moment, so, too, is a new wave of cowboy campiness.
Ryley Walker / The veiled singer Orville Peck.
40 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS PERSPECTIVES procedural hurdle that changed dures: Federal agencies could business-as-usual for federal plan- interpret “productive harmony” ning and decision-making. Before however they liked, as long as undertaking “major Federal actions they filed an EIS. In 1989, in what significantly affecting the quality of has become a controlling opin- the human environment” — offer- ion in Robertson v. Methow Valley ing timber sales on federal land, for Citizens Council, the U.S. Supreme example, or building an interstate Court went further, declaring that highway — federal agencies and federal agencies did not even have their partners now had to submit to preserve “productive harmony.” “a detailed statement.” That envi- Instead, it found that “NEPA merely ronmental impact statement, or prohibits uninformed — rather EIS, needed to be interdisciplin- than unwise — agency action.” In Where NEPA fell short ary and thorough, detailing any other words, the EIS needed to list environmental problems likely to all the options, but agencies were A look back at the ground-breaking legislation result from the proposed project not required to choose the best one. on its 50th anniversary. and listing alternatives, including In the decades since, NEPA’s more costly ones. Then the public critics have periodically tried to gut BY ADAM M. SOWARDS was invited to comment. The proce- the law further, such as the Trump dure significantly lengthened and administration seeking to exempt complicated federal land-use plan- certain Forest Service projects from ning and politicized it like never its rules. Critics commonly bemoan “Reckoning with History” is an ongo- governance, and how its promise before. the lengthy and litigious process ing series that seeks to understand has diminished. Five decades ago, The new process was trans- that fulfilling NEPA requirements the legacies of the past and to put the the federal government recognized formative. The interdisciplinary has become, which is easier to West’s present moment in perspective. its responsibility to reduce environ- requirement meant that engineers track than the law’s successes. mental problems. But while NEPA had to consult biologists, forest- Adherence is costly in time and IN LATE JANUARY 1969, a blow- provided a road map, only some of ers needed hydrologists and so personnel, especially for agencies out on Unocal’s Platform A leaked those routes have been taken. on, effectively forcing agencies already underfunded, understaffed 3 million gallons of crude oil into Congress introduced, amended like the Bureau of Land Manage- and facing large backlogs of work. the Pacific Ocean, just 6 miles from and passed NEPA quickly, and only ment to hire a range of specialists NEPA’s procedures can be rigid, Santa Barbara, California. The spill 15 legislators voted against it, indi- and ask different and often harder and for a culture bent on efficiency, — at the time, the largest in U.S. cating a widespread consensus on questions than ever before. By almost nothing seems as bad as history — spread over 800 square the need for federal environmen- investigating alternatives rather that. miles, coated 8 miles of beaches tal regulation. The law is relatively than simply presenting a proposal Yet returning to an era when and killed thousands of animals. straightforward: Besides creating as a fait accompli, greater degrees government officials made deci- Images of the devastation shocked the Council on Environmental of choice and openness came to sions without considering envi- a public increasingly worried about Quality to advise the president and the process, as well as a franker ronmental impacts or public input the environment and helped spur issue guidance and regulations, it acknowledgement that building would erode democratic gover- Congress to pass a sweeping law provided general principles to dams or offering gas leases cause nance. NEPA’s opening section aimed at preventing similar disas- direct federal activities and devised environmental problems. The ends by recognizing “that each ters in the future — the National a process to implement them. addition of a public comment person should enjoy a healthful Environmental Policy Act. At the heart of the legislation lay period also made environmental environment and that each person President Richard Nixon signed an optimistic belief that economic decision-making more democratic. has a responsibility to contribute to NEPA into law on Jan. 1, 1970, from growth, environmental protec- Although the final decision was the preservation and enhancement his home office on the Pacific Coast. tion and human welfare might not open to a popular vote, the EIS of the environment.” That senti- The signing was a fitting launch for align without sacrifice or rancor. process involved the public much ment captures NEPA’s essence from the environmental decade of the The law highlights the need to more directly than ever before. its birth to its golden anniversary: 1970s — a time when “America pays “create and maintain conditions But the EIS process with its Citizens deserve healthy surround- its debt to the past by reclaiming under which man and nature can public input also opened doors to ings, and they also bear a responsi- the purity of its air, its waters, and exist in productive harmony, and lawsuits, a result as American — bility for securing them through the our living environment,” as Nixon fulfill the social, economic, and and as controversial — as the public faithful execution of the law. said in his signing statement. “It is other requirements of present and lands themselves. Congress had literally now or never.” future generations of Americans.” added the EIS procedure to protect On the law’s 50th anniversary, It clearly takes a long-range view, the “productive harmony” at the it is worth considering its origins, incorporating tomorrow’s environ- law’s core. But the strategy failed. development and significance mental fate into today’s decisions. The year after Nixon signed NEPA, — including the ways it has trans- These values, though, tend to the D.C. Circuit Court declared its formed American environmental be forgotten, overshadowed by a goals flexible, but not its proce-
JANUARY 2020 41 Jenna Schoenefeld for High Country News / Armando Elenes, secretary treasurer of United Farm Workers, in Bakersfield, California.
It’s been more than five decades make some strategic compromises since farmworkers in Delano, to get conservatives and industry California, walked off the grape The strategist on board, however, and UFW Secre- fields and began a five-year strike tary Treasurer Armando Elenes in what is now considered one of Armando Elenes is quietly organizing a acknowledges that he is not happy the great movements in American new wave of farmworkers. with some of the bill’s aspects. But labor history. The strike helped the UFW believes in taking a prag- launch the mass organizing of the BY NICK BOWLIN matic approach to coalition build- Central Valley’s agricultural field- ing, bringing together members of workers under the leadership of both political parties along with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm industry interests. Partial progress Workers (UFW). Today, the UFW and seasonal workers is a funda- law, it would provide a path to citi- is still progress, especially given the continues to carry on that mission: mental part of its mission. This zenship for hundreds of thousands Trump White House’s sustained to build worker power, fight corpo- requires both organizing in the of undocumented farmworkers. attacks on immigration policy. rate exploitation and advocate for fields and playing politics in the The proposed legislation, which Elenes’ life exemplifies the labor protections and fair wages. halls of power. Most recently, it was was introduced with support from link between American farm work In Chavez’s time, the UFW instrumental in negotiating the agriculture corporations and two and immigration. Elenes, the son supported immigration restric- Farm Workforce Modernization Act dozen House Republicans, pres- of a migrant farmworker, and his tions to preserve the wages and (FWMA), which was passed by the ents one of the best chances for family immigrated to the U.S. from jobs of its own members, but these House in December and now moves significant citizenship expansion Sinaloa, Mexico, in 1980. It was not days, protecting undocumented to the Senate. If the bill becomes in recent years. The union had to an easy journey; they were appre-
42 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS hended by the Border Patrol three ship. They need to show they’ve how else are we going to get some- times before reaching California, been working in agriculture for at thing done?” When you go into though they eventually qualified least 180 days in the previous two negotiations, you want the Cadil- for permanent residency there. years. Second qualifier: They have lac, but sometimes you got to settle As a teenager, Elenes worked in no criminal record, no felonies. for a Chevy. California’s fruit fields and dairies. Third, and this is more of a Repub- He got his organizing start in these lican thing, they have to pay a fine, What’s been the impact of the same fields and worked his way up because they supposedly broke the Trump administration’s immigra- to UFW’s leadership team, where law. So there’s a $1,000 fine. tion policies on farmworkers? he helps direct its key campaigns. It’s a huge impact. More than He recently spoke with High Coun- That’s a lot of money. anything it’s the fear tactics, the try News about protecting undoc- So, again, we had to compromise. rhetoric that has scared workers. umented workers, organizing We said farmworkers often don’t “So, again, And not just the rhetoric — they’re strategy and his own story. have that much money, but we seeing the enforcement. ICE (Immi- had to secure Republican support. we had to gration and Customs Enforcement) California is the core of your orga- Farmworkers would be able to get a is just doing blanket sweeps. A year nizing power. How do you think visa, a “blue card” that would allow compromise. ago, in the San Joaquin Valley, we strategically about scaling up? them to work here legally, allow identified 45 farmworkers who First of all, you have to understand them to go back and forth to their We said had been picked up in one sweep. agriculture. The four biggest agri- home country. Five of the 45 had an actual depor- culture labor states in the country If they want to get permanent farmworkers tation order, but the other 40 just are California, Washington, Oregon residency, they would have to happened to be there. It creates and Florida. That’s why we focus on continue working in agriculture. often don’t panic. It creates fear. Workers the West Coast, in California, where That’s the growers’ interest in trying don’t want to go to work or even go the biggest growers are. There, we to secure their labor force. They have that outside to take their kids to school. got heat-protection legislation could eventually apply for a green passed. It includes things like paid card. If someone doesn’t qualify, much money, Tell me how you got into UFW orga- breaks, training and shade. So they would be able to get into the nizing. we’ve taken the California stan- H2A program (for temporary agri- but we had I graduated from high school and dards and (are trying to expand) so cultural workers) without having to wanted to go to college — didn’t that farmworkers nationwide can go back to their home country. We to secure have the money to do that. So I have protections from heat. Same also included protections for guest enrolled in the Air Force. When I got thing with overtime: We finally H2A workers (including rights in Republican back to California and started going got overtime pay for farmworkers federal court, Labor Department to junior college, I got involved in passed in California in 2016. Now protections and wage standards.) support.” the UFW through a student group. it’s expanding into New York (and After workers have an oppor- Early on, I was able to convince a possibly Washington, where a court tunity to adjust their status, then worker to stand up and start taking case could set national precedent). the whole agriculture industry action on his own behalf. When I would be required to use E-Verify started talking to that worker, he How much did you have to push the (a system that confirms a person’s was very afraid of even speaking up. growers to get a deal on the Farm eligibility to work in the U.S.). I ended up having to leave the area, Workforce Modernization Act? but then I came back two months We started negotiating alongside When do you strike, and when do later, and to my shock the worker other farmworker groups with the you compromise? was in front of a meeting talking major industry associations, and It’s a fine dance with the power you to other workers about the impor- we came to an agreement with have. Is the workforce ready for tance of speaking up. You could see them on how to have a legalization some sort of major action? And what the total difference in him. That, to program for farmworkers. exactly are we trying to achieve? me, was the biggest payday: When (The growers) want something It’s more on a case-by-case basis. you see workers who feel they can’t done, and so do (farmworkers); we There are certain things the workers say anything, that they don’t have just have different interests. And simply won’t accept, and it’s about a voice, and then they find their that’s fine. They want to secure what the workers want, not neces- voice, man, you can’t take that their labor force. What we want sarily what the organizers want. away from them. To me, that’s the is to protect the labor force that’s That’s why we compromised pay right there. coming in and to protect the work- on the modernization act. We ers who are here. figured out what’s politically feasi- The first part (of the FWMA) ble. And we get flak on both sides, is to legalize a process whereby because people say, “No E-Verify!” farmworkers can win their citizen- And I say, “I don’t want it either, but
JANUARY 2020 43 REVIEW
The fascinating Mitzi Bearclaw Mohawk director Shelley Niro crafts an entertaining tale about a millennial Indigenous woman returning home.
BY JASON ASENAP The Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bearclaw/Film still
THE INCREDIBLE 25TH YEAR going through a horrible traumatic for this story to work. The movie diabetic mother hints at her own of Mitzi Bearclaw just so happens to experience. This is not to say Indig- is edited to move from one chap- disease by saying, “Sugar gets every- be one of the stories we’re missing enous movies on serious subjects ter to the next at a steady pace; one.” Mitzi’s cousin, Charlie B., gets in cinema: It’s about a young Indig- aren’t important, of course — but it scenes don’t linger or overstay their progressively worse from an undis- enous woman who, at 25, doesn’t is nice, once in a while, to see a story welcome. There’s a nice mixture of closed illness throughout the movie. always make the right choices. that isn’t so laden with postcolonial different styles of upbeat music in Cayuga actor Gary Farmer shows up, There are plenty of Indigenous trauma. And there are a multitude the score. I’ll even forgive that quick but then we attend his character’s stories and films that take on a of truly contemporary Indigenous flourish of flute music. funeral later on in the movie. He, too, host of serious subjects — poverty, stories like this that have yet to be Mitzi is played by Morningstar must have been sick. Director Shel- alcoholism, land and water rights, touched upon. Angeline Freeland, who was a lead ley Niro gets that life is full of such boarding school trauma. But Mitzi Upon receiving a letter about in Drunktown’s Finest, a movie by experiences, but stays committed is simply a coming-of-age story — her ailing mother, Mitzi is called Navajo director Sydney Freeland, to a comedic tone. She deals with and a fun watch. home from her creative life in down- her elder sister. Morningstar Free- the sad events but keeps the movie This is a, dare I say it, contem- town Toronto, where she designs land is effervescent and charming moving forward. porary movie, and that’s a term I funky hats and her boyfriend is a here. Mitzi is different from many While not life-changing, The don’t like using. Tommy Orange’s photographer. Family obligations of her past roles: In Drunktown’s Incredible 25th Year of Mitzi Bear- novel, There There, is often called throw her back into small-commu- Finest, she played Nizhoni, a girl claw is an enjoyable cinematic “contemporary,” a word that non-In- nity life on a fictitious coastal reserve in search of her birth parents. In experience. There’s not a moment digenous folks usually take to mean in Southwestern Canada. There, she Lakota/Navajo filmmaker Razelle that moves too slowly, which is a serious look at Indian people faces old enemies and unresolved Benally’s short film Raven, she a good sign: It means the film is living in the 21st century, sans relationships, including a mother played a young mother mourning engaging. In a perfect world, there powwow regalia, maybe living in who was never supportive and an her lost child. Her role in Vincent would be more movies like this, poverty — contemporary in their old rivalry with a childhood enemy. D’Onofrio’s The Kid is listed as designed for the overlooked demo- terms. But Indians have been Mitzi left all this small-town drama simply “Young Whore.” Suffice it to graphic of mid-20s Indigenous contemporary for a long time, and behind when she moved to Toronto, say that Freeland rarely gets to cut young creatives. It’s a story about we’re not always in such disrepair. but these are the things she must loose and play roles like Mitzi. She growth, feelings and maturation, I’d like to redefine “contempo- confront in order to grow as an adult. sets the tone at the beginning: Right all the things that young Indige- rary” on our terms. Contemporary The movie gives us a peek at a before Mitzi and her boyfriend are nous people are doing when they doesn’t mean that we still “exist” year in the life, month by month, of about to feed a group of hungry aren’t protesting or rapping or sing- outside of old, outdated Western a young Indigenous woman trying people in a park, she chuckles and ing or praying or whatever social notions of Indigenous culture. It to figure out her next steps. Near teases him, “Look at you, all seri- media tells you that young Indige- means exploring overlooked char- the beginning of the movie, Mitzi ous.” It’s refreshing to hear, because nous people do. It’s a simple movie acters in Indigenous stories. Mitzi laments in a fit of narcissism, “Why we know Mitzi’s sass is going to about the simple things we all go Bearclaw is contemporary because does everything happen to me?” keep us on our toes. through, the trials and tribulations the lead is a multidimensional Clearly, she will have to figure out As entertaining as the movie is, of finding love and your place in young Indigenous woman who isn’t that it’s not all about her in order there’s a lot of sickness in it. Mitzi’s this world, and that’s all right.
44 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REVIEW mas at once personal and political, Lalami’s novel calls to mind the work of another celebrated Califor- nia writer: Joan Didion. In Didion’s first novel, Run River, protagonist Lily McClellan concludes a medita- West of Al-Maghrib tion on her pioneer family’s violent history by declaring that “it had In Laila Lalami’s ‘The Other Americans,’ a Moroccan-American above all a history of accidents: of family seeks a sense of belonging in California. moving on and of accidents.” Lalami shares Didion’s unsen- BY ALEX TRIMBLE YOUNG timental perspective on the West, and the startling conclusion of The Other Americans refuses both self-righteous moralizing and melo- IN HER BRILLIANT FOURTH motion when Moroccan immigrant with the austere realities of having a dramatic redemption. But while novel The Other Americans (Pan- Driss Guerraoui dies in a suspicious creative career in the United States. Didion emphasizes the contingency theon, 2019), Moroccan-American hit-and-run accident while cross- She returns to Yucca Valley from of Western history, Lalami forces writer Laila Lalami paints an un- ing the highway outside the diner San Francisco hoping to find out readers to confront the fact that the sparing portrait of the American he owns in the town of Yucca Valley. who was responsible for her father’s violence of that history is anything West, deliberately rejecting the The novel pieces together Driss’ life death, while also questioning where but an accident. familiar frontier stories of redemp- with interwoven accounts from his her own story went wrong. Instead tive violence or restorative wilder- family and the diverse cast of desert of clear answers, she finds the ness. Instead, Lalami’s West is a dwellers drawn into the investiga- cluttered assemblage of love and place where outcasts and immi- tion of his death. loss, adultery and addiction that is grants struggle to coexist in a des- There are elements of Driss’ revealed when most family histo- As the ert that sprawls between a national story that resonate with a well- ries are probed closely enough. park and a military base. Simulta- known American narrative: An Throbbing below the disso- investigation neously lyrical and accessible, The immigrant flees political oppression nant melodies of the Guerraoui Other Americans is both an en- and arrives in a Western town where family’s story is a bass line of fear unfolds, the gaging whodunit and a profound he builds his own business, raises a engendered by the militarism meditation on identity and com- family, and comes to identify with and virulent anti-Arab racism Guerraoui munity in the contemporary Amer- his new nation and the land itself. that crescendoed after 9/11. From ican West. The Other Americans notes that ethnic slurs in the school hallway family’s hopeful The Arabic word for Morocco, Driss buys his diner from “a pair to an unexplained arson at the “Al-Maghrib,” also means “the West.” of homesteaders” who built it on family’s doughnut shop, the racism frontier story American literary expatriates “land that belonged to Chemehuevi associated with the ongoing “war such as Paul Bowles and William Indians.” Otherwise, like so many on terror” constantly threatens to begins to Burroughs, who made Morocco Westerns, the novel is problemati- overwhelm the Guerraouis’ accep- their home during the middle of the cally empty of Indigenous history or tance into American life. Their very unravel. 20th century, drew mythological characters. Driss’ status as an immi- name resonates with the French la connections between Al-Maghrib grant frontiersman is reinforced by guerre — the war. and the American West, imagining his name, which references Moulay This tension between the Morocco as a new frontier on which Idriss, the venerated descendent family’s identity as American and they were countercultural pioneers. of the Prophet Muhammad, who its labeling as the “other” in the Lalami has long been a trenchant travelled West from the Arabian war on terrorism heightens when critic of the outsized influence Peninsula to found the Kingdom Nora reconnects with an old flame these writers have on the American of Morocco. In his later years, Driss from high school, Jeremy, a sher- understanding of Morocco. Lala- buys a cabin amid the Joshua trees, iff’s deputy recently home from a mi’s latest novel, a National Book where he enjoys the solitude of military tour in Iraq. Traumatized Award finalist, turns the tables on the desert like a Maghrebi Edward by their experiences on either side their frontier rhetoric through the Abbey — or so it seems. of the racial “frontier,” Jeremy story of a Moroccan immigrant As the investigation into the and Nora bond while confronting family living a few miles down the accident unfolds, the Guerraoui the truths that might bring some road from Pioneertown, California, family’s hopeful frontier story meaning to Driss’ death — and life a ramshackle settlement in the begins to unravel. The driving force — even as they battle a community Mojave Desert built amid the ruins behind the investigation and the eager to dismiss the hit-and-run as of a defunct Western film set. narrative is Driss’ daughter Nora, a an accident. The Other Americans is set into promising jazz composer struggling In its poetic meditation on trau-
JANUARY 2020 45 Heard Around the West Tips on Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write [email protected] or tag photos #heardaroundthewest on Instagram.
BY BETSY MARSTON
MONTANA called out her critics, saying, “Hey One thing about bears: They tend to Twitter, the whole point of this ad do what they want to do, not what campaign is to raise awareness. So I we humans might prefer. A hotel think that’s working. …” Like many in Big Sky, Montana, learned this states, South Dakota is battling a after a young black bear climbed meth problem: The New York Times through a window into a ladies’ reports that from 2014-2018, South bathroom. Once inside, he curled Dakota saw a 200 percent increase up in a sink and fell fast asleep. in people seeking treatment for Buck’s T-4 Lodge tried various it. “We were looking for a way that ploys to persuade the bear to depart, would cause citizens to stop, pay but the sleepy animal only woke attention and understand that up long enough to shift positions, we do have a meth issue and that abandoning the sink for a “nap there are resources available,” said across the countertop,” reports Laurie Gill, head of the Department Weird News. It took a team of police of Social Services. The point of the and wildlife officers to tranquilize campaign, she added, is that “you the already relaxed bear and carry don’t have to be a user to be affected him out of the bathroom, still out by meth. Everybody is.” like a light. He was safely released in the wild, where he presumably UTAH resumed his interrupted snooze. The Beehive State may be over- whelmingly white, conservative ARIZONA and Republican, but when it comes Sienna Gonzales for High Country News What you might call “vintage trash” to welcoming the world’s refugees, Work, — garbage that’s more than 50 years it steps up. After President Trump old — is considered “historic” in through the 1950s. You could set out the park, relishes the irony: “It’s signed an executive order this fall Arizona’s Petrified Forest National from Chicago for Los Angeles, more funny that someone would throw allowing states and cities — for the pants. Park and carefully left in situ. than 2,000 miles away, and drive for these bottles or cans out and not first time — to veto local refugee National Park Service staffers, what seemed like forever under big think that in 50 years they’d be in a resettlement, Utah responded by reports Atlas Obscura, preserve old skies, trying out homemade food museum somewhere.” Yet every day, saying, in effect:Send more! Repub- steel cans (the kind that used church from roadside stalls and stopping he added, “things are constantly lican Gov. Gary Herbert wrote the keys), marbles, bottles, door handles to explore tiny towns and funky becoming historic.” As the writer president: “We empathize deeply and even toys that tourists driving roadside attractions in the middle of William Faulkner memorably put with individuals and groups who Carrying capacity. Route 66 — aka the “Mother Road” nowhere. In 2006, the park created a it, “The past is never dead. It’s not have been forced from their homes From deep, double-layer back pockets to sturdy — chucked out of their cars decades turnoff to commemorate the nostal- even past.” and we love giving them a new cargos and reinforced five-pocket designs, we build ago. Most of the discards landed gia-ridden highway, featuring arti- home and a new life.” He added that ® about 10 to 15 feet from the highway facts taken from what staffers have SOUTH DAKOTA the newcomers become responsi- our Iron Forge Hemp canvas work pants with a range and slowly disappeared into the dubbed the “throw zone.” The park’s The Twitter world had a great ble citizens and workers, and “they of pocket setups to suit your specific needs on the job. dirt, yet goodies can still be found. 800,000 visitors can admire a 1932 time mocking South Dakota after have been an asset to Utah,” reports Petrified Forest, better known for Studebaker propped up on concrete it unveiled its new, million-dol- the Washington Post. The Church © 2019 Patagonia, Inc. its sculptural, multicolored rocks, is supports, or consult a “Route 66 lar-plus anti-drug slogan: “Meth. of Jesus Christ of Latter-day the only national park that contains Corridor Preservation Program” that We’re on it,” but the state’s gover- Saints also reaffirmed its support, a segment of Route 66, which repre- includes oral histories and an itiner- nor appeared unfazed by the encouraging its members to “create sented travel through the American ary for road trippers. William Parker, fuss. Republican Kristi Noem, welcoming communities,” reports West at its quirkiest from the 1930s the chief of science and resource at the state’s first woman governor, the Salt Lake Tribune.
46 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Work, pants.
Carrying capacity.
From deep, double-layer back pockets to sturdy cargos and reinforced five-pocket designs, we build our Iron Forge Hemp® canvas work pants with a range of pocket setups to suit your specific needs on the job.
© 2019 Patagonia, Inc.
JANUARY 2020 47 119 Grand Avenue PO Box 1090 Paonia, CO 81428
#IAM THE WEST CESAR ORTIGOZA Armadillos Búsqueda y Rescate Oceanside, California
I came undocumented, and I had to jump through the fence in San Ysidro. It was easy, really easy, in those days. Knowing what people have to go through now, in the desert, I felt like we had to do something. For us to call up those parents and say we found your family, we found your son, knowing that all of us did that much and we got tired and we got thirsty and we got hungry and that didn’t keep us from going and finding this person, it makes me feel really proud. I love doing this, and I would like to keep doing it until I can’t walk any more. The desert, it’s really beautiful. But you have to be really respectful, and know that you have the heat as your enemy. Andrew Cullen for High Country Cullen for News Andrew
Do you know a Westerner with a great story? U.S. $5 | Canada $6 Let us know on social.
Follow us @highcountrynews #iamthewest | hcn.org