Celebrity Scofflaw How the Feds Helped Make Cliven Bundy a Hero by Tay Wiles April 30, 2018 | $5 | Vol
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PARKS AND PRIORITIES | FRACTURING NATIVE FAMILIES | THE UNSPOKEN LANGUAGE OF ACEQUIAS High Country ForN people whoews care about the West Celebrity Scofflaw How the feds helped make Cliven Bundy a hero By Tay Wiles April 30, 2018 | $5 | Vol. 50 No. 7 | www.hcn.org 50 No. | $5 Vol. April 30, 2018 CONTENTS Editor’s note Wild country For anyone with an appetite for the West’s ongoing culture clashes, the new Netflix series Wild Wild Country is an unexpected feast. It describes how the followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh bought a ranch outside of rural Antelope, Oregon, in the early 1980s and attempted to build a utopian community. The series hits themes familiar to High Country News readers: a persecuted minority seeking a remote place to practice their beliefs without interference; conservative white locals with little tolerance for outsiders; fabulous wealth (the Bhagwan reportedly had 90 Rolls Royces and wore million- dollar diamond watches) contrasted with wretched poverty (the Rajneesh community bused in thousands of homeless people from cities in an attempt to sway local elections); and, of course, guns and violence. There’s even an environmental angle — Oregon’s first counterattack focused on the community’s violation of progressive land-use regulations designed to protect agricultural lands from development. Cliven Bundy walks out of federal court in Las Vegas with his wife, Carol, and attorney Bret Whipple in January, I couldn’t find anything about this tumultuous after a judge dismissed criminal charges against him and his sons over the 2014 standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada. K.M. CANNON/LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL VIA AP episode in HCN’s archives, perhaps because the story was already heavily covered by the Oregon and national FEATURES press, or, more likely, because back then we had a tiny staff busy covering Ronald Reagan and his Interior On the cover 16 Celebrity Scofflaw secretary, James Watt, who, citing his own religious Cliven Bundy How the feds helped make Cliven Bundy a hero By Tay Wiles on his ranch near convictions, wanted to drill, mine and log as much of Bunkerville, Nevada. 12 Who Can Adopt a Native Child? the public lands as possible. ANDREW CULLEN The Indian Child Welfare Act has helped repair the damage of the But I think we’d cover it if it happened today, much boarding-school era — but not everyone wants it in place By Allison Herrera as we have followed the strange, winding saga of Cliven Bundy and his family. This issue’s cover story, by CURRENTS Associate Editor Tay Wiles, untangles the many threads behind the Bundys’ rebellion. As devout Mormons, the 5 Co-ops get connected Bundys inherited a reverence for the U.S. Constitution, In New Mexico, co-ops lead the way on internet access which protected their ancestors from persecution, even 6 Fish and Wildlife’s radical new approach as they absorbed more radical Western strains of anti- The agency is reconsidering how it handles rare species government ideology. The story also describes how the 7 Sharing food sovereignty Department of Justice and Bureau of Land Management A digital generation is reconnecting with tradition bungled their own legal case against the family. 7 The Latest: Coal continues to decline in Wyoming In Oregon, the state and the feds built a case that led to the conviction of the Bhagwan’s lieutenants, the 8 What to do with an extra billion? Congress rejected the deep budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration, creating an unwieldy windfall guru’s forced return to India and the dismantling of his utopian community. In Nevada, the Bundys walked 9 The Latest: Salmon get a boost over Columbia River dams away unscathed, and Cliven is back to running his cows illegally on the public lands, even as his fellow ranchers DEPARTMENTS dutifully pay the modest fees. 3 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG Why the different outcomes? As Wiles points out, Complete access the Bundys play right into a Western mythology that 4 LETTERS to subscriber-only still holds enormous sway. They are white ranchers, who content 10 THE HCN COMMUNITY Research Fund, Dear Friends unapologetically took land stolen from Native tribes and HCN’s website 24 MARKETPLACE scratched out a living even as environmental regulations hcn.org 27 WRITERS ON THE RANGE tightened. The Rajneeshis were never part of this narrative. Digital edition Why I’m teaching my daughters how to hunt By Brian Sexton But the tale of the Bundys and their allies isn’t over. hcne.ws/digi-5007 One can hope that the next skirmish will help blow away 28 BOOKS Narrow River, Wide Sky: A Memoir by Jenny Forrester the clouds of Western mythology and reveal the real Reviewed by Mary Slosson Follow us issues. Allowing a rancher to use the threat of violence to 29 ESSAY This acequia life By Leeanna Torres prevent reasonable regulation of public lands should be a 30 PERSPECTIVE The parks have been fixed before By Adam M. Sowards thing of the past, perhaps memorialized in a Netflix series. @highcountrynews 32 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston --Paul Larmer, executive director/publisher 2 High Country News April 30, 2018 From our wEbSiTE: HCN.ORG Trending The Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Report omits backdrop to climate Colorado’s Great change cause Sand Dunes National Park In drafts of a long- and Preserve, awaited report on where more than sea-level rise and 18,000 acres will storm surge at coastal be available for oil national park sites, and gas leases in Park Service officials September. have deleted every PRISMA BILDAGENTUR/ reference to the UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES) human role in causing climate change. Drilling, one mile outside Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes Critics say the agency’s editing of This fall, 11 parcels located less than a mile from Great Sand Dunes National preserve’s eastern boundary, they push into previously undeveloped areas the report reflects Park and Preserve in south-central Colorado will be up for an online oil that provide important wildlife habitat and serve as migratory corridors. unprecedented and gas lease sale. The park is famous for its iconic sand dunes and has Critics of the leases say the greenhouse gases and other pollutants political interference a reputation for being one of the quietest national parks in the country, released by energy development could harm air quality. Other impacts to in government according to a soundscape study conducted in 2008. the area could include light pollution and the haze and noise caused by science at the Interior Environmental groups worry that drilling would significantly impact that increased truck traffic to well sites. The lease sale is set to be announced on Department, which silence, as well as local wildlife. Though the parcels to be leased are located July 20, and take place in September. JESSICA KUTZ oversees the Park just over the summit of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which form the Read more online: hcne.ws/drilling-dunes Service. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke testified at Audio a Senate committee hearing in March Percent of Americans who spent at w ant better coverage? that the department 43least some time working remotely in 2016. This region’s Hire diverse journalists. has not changed any scientific documents. “become rapidly Balance is a basic tenet of journalism — but “I challenge you, any more and more unrecognized bias can seep into publications member, to find a that lack a diverse staff. “If (a) newsroom is in politicized. And it’s document that we’ve Number of people who1 left Grants,4 overwhelmingly white, chances are it still lacks actually changed on New Mexico, known as “the uranium capital being talked about a deeper understanding of any community a report,” Zinke said. of color it attempts to cover,” writes Graham of the world,” in the decade after its uranium a lot of times in a When asked about mines went bust. Lee Brewer in a recent perspective on Native the altered drafts at a way that doesn’t representation in journalism. House subcommittee The residents of Grants, New Mexico, popula- really describe Brewer cites National Geographic as an meeting in April, Zinke tion 9,000, face a predicament common to example of a publication that’s moving in the said he had not seen many small town citizens: finding consistent it as a vital, right direction: The magazine’s April issue is them and again vowed work. But a fledgling state program called lived-in space, devoted to race and the problematic ways that he will not censor SoloWorks is trying to change that. non-white cultures have been portrayed in scientific reports. SoloWorks connects workers to remote and as a place its pages in the past. Still, the issue did not ELIZABETH SHOGREN/ out-of-state jobs, one person at a time. While of community include any stories on Native Americans. REVEAL a pilot year showed mixed results — many “Indian images are everywhere in popular workers didn’t retain their jobs for very long and a place of culture, but Native Americans as real people You say — tweaks focused on increasing retention living in America today are often overlooked connections, which THOMAS MANAUGH: could help the program succeed. Programs and ignored,” John Coward, a University of KR “Censorship should like SoloWorks could be another route to is really what it is. Tulsa professor and expert on Native American LIC representation in popular media, told Brewer. be investigated by reversing population declines in rural com- — Maya L. Kapoor, talking F “This situation may be improving, but as the a congressional VIA munities across the West, where once-lucra- on the West Obsessed” oversight committee.” tive work in mines and other natural resource podcast about her story, CC National Geographic example shows, progress industries is harder to come by than it was a “A Desert Divided on the U, is very slow.” GRAHAM LEE BREWER pa generation ago.