Drilling Chaco in Navajo Country, Efforts to Slow Oil and Gas Development Face a Formidable Opponent: History by Jonathan Thompson CONTENTS

Nevada military expansion | Beaver believers | Bundys’ victory lap

High Country ForN people whoews care about the West March 5, 2018 | $5 | Vol. 50 No. 4 | www.hcn.org 50 No. | $5 Vol. March 5, 2018 Drilling Chaco In Navajo Country, efforts to slow oil and gas development face a formidable opponent: History By Jonathan Thompson CONTENTS

Editor’s note Movements slow and fast

Last weekend, I drove to the recreation center and found a “handicapped” parking spot. I hung my blue tag on the mirror, got out and walked a short distance over a smooth sidewalk to the front of the building. There, I pushed the big button at wheelchair height that automatically opens the doors and went in. No big deal, right? Only it is a big deal, because access to public spaces and businesses for people like me — I’ve used crutches my whole life — was not a given until the passage of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act. And it took determined people decades to make that happen against the will of a business community that thought — and in pockets still thinks — the law too burdensome. The ADA is part of our country’s proud tradition of protest movements, which seems to be accelerat- ing in the digital age — from #BlackLivesMatter to A feral horse looks on as a truck passes a major hydraulic fracturing operation on oil wells #MeToo to the nascent #NeverAgain movement about 15 miles outside of Chaco Culture National Historic Park. Jonathan Thompson sparked by high school students from Parkland, Florida, where a former student recently gunned FEATURE down 17 people with a legally purchased AR-15. As those students jump into the gun debate, 12 Drilling Chaco “ they join legions of activists, past and present, who In Navajo Country, efforts to slow oil and gas development have notched victories and endured setbacks. They face a formidable opponent: History By Jonathan Thompson comfortably wield the tools of social media, which On the cover enables rapid organizing, but also encourages vi- CURRENTS cious counterattacks. They will need thick skin and Kendra Pinto, a young Navajo 5 Unexpected resilience Western wildlife is surviving a run of bad luck stamina to keep their eyes on the prize, as the civil activist, perches on rights movement put it. a ledge high above Open waters There’s bipartisan displeasure with Interior’s plan The West’s own movements have been magnified the New Mexico for offshore drilling by digital connectivity. Witness the anti-federal crowd landscape where 6 The fight over Washington’s wells Rural growth competes with fish, that rallied around rancher Cliven Bundy and his sons, she roamed freely farmers and waterways who outmaneuvered federal prosecutors over armed as a child, near confrontations in Nevada and Oregon. Writer Hal Her- Twin Pines. In the 6 The Latest: The might of outdoor rec distance, a well site ring caught up with them in the tiny town of Paradise, emits a flare that can 7 The Nevada front The Air Force wants control of Montana; his essay in this issue reveals a movement be seen and heard 300,000 more desert acres that remains small but potent in rural America. from miles away. And then there is the #NoDAPL movement that 8 An abandoned tradition Why an abalone fishing ban is a hardship Rob Zeigler erupted on the North Dakota prairie two years ago, for coastal tribes seeking to halt an oil pipeline near the Standing 9 The Beaver State’s bedeviled mascot A novel legal strategy Rock Sioux reservation. Though it failed in that mis- seeks to protect beavers sion, the protest inspired a new generation of Native 9 The Latest: Invasive nutria are back American activists, who have continued the fight on other battlefields. Contributing Editor Jonathan DEPARTMENTS Thompson spent time with a few of them in the Four Corners region, where oil and gas development is 3 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG closing in on Navajo communities and the culturally Complete access 4 LETTERS significant Chaco Culture National Historic Park. to subscriber-only Thompson notes that the new activists, steeped content 10 THE HCN COMMUNITY Research Fund, Dear Friends in a long tradition of oppression and perseverance, HCN’s website 20 MARKETPLACE already understand something that the students in hcn.org Florida may just now be realizing — that their work 24 PERSPECTIVE will be neither easy nor quick. It will take years of Digital edition Disasters and their disparities By Ruxandra Guidi hcne.ws/digi-5004 on-the-ground organizing and determined negotia- 25 BOOKS tion with equally determined industries and politi- Reviewed by Melissa Hart cians. But change is always possible. Those doors Follow us Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. 26 ESSAY may look closed, but under strong enough pressure, they will one day open — like the automatic doors at By Hal Herring  Stranger than Paradise my recreation center. @highcountrynews 28 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston —Paul Larmer, executive director/publisher

2 High Country News March 5, 2018 From our website: HCN.ORG s ge Ima y

tt Trending California resists offshore drilling e G /

The Trump administration is pushing to expand and four oil production platforms off Carpinteria n

io Protected

federal offshore oil production in the U.S., and Santa Barbara. On Jan. 28, 1969, a blowout ct including off the California coast. Opposition to from Union Oil’s Platform A spilled more than lands generate drilling stands at 69 percent in the state, due in 3.2 million gallons of oil into the Santa Barbara olle big-time part to the state’s history of oil spills, with the Channel, tarring 30 miles of beach and killing e C revenue

last major one occurring in the 1960s. thousands of birds and marine mammals. ctur

Pi In this opinion piece, E

Offshore oil drilling in California started in That spill changed the course of the state’s F

LI Tim Lydon reflects on

1896 and ramped up by the 1950s — it’s still the offshore drilling; a moratorium was imposed, e

h his recent backpacking

nation’s third-highest oil producer — and by the and 1970s-era environmental laws and lawsuits /T trip to Prince William III 1960s, there were hundreds of exploratory wells stymied federal attempts to increase drilling.

tt Sound in Alaska, Today, residents and politicians are promoting i rr where “tendrils of Californians who oppose/favor renewable energy and striving to lower Me commerce” could be 100 drilling on the coast Oppose greenhouse gases, goals that this administration n o seen on land and Favor has not prioritized. rn 80 e water. While some

69% V Charles Lester/The Conversation 60 well-known recreation Read more online: hcne.ws/resisting-oil hubs like Moab and

Percent 40 Jackson Hole are u thriving, public lands 20 25% An oil-covered surfer walks along the beach in Santa Barbara, California, after the also benefit more rural 0 1969 blowout of the Union Oil Company places, too. Under the well. It spilled 3.2 million gallons of oil into Trump administration, 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 the Santa Barbara Channel, covering 800 Lydon concludes, SOURCE: PPIC STATEWIDE SURVEYS, JULY 2003-JULY 2017, proving public lands’ FROM PPIC BLOG, JANUARY 2018 square miles of ocean and shore. profitability is one way to keep wilderness protected from more Audio Photos damaging industries like oil and gas. When we think of Native people A football “For many people, team at the protected areas in the United States, we often think, edge of the provide an escape unfortunately, of people in the from commerce,” “ world 19th century in the past, hunting Lydon writes. “But Barrow, Alaska, we should not ignore buffalo and fighting the Cavalry. High School the dollar value of Or maybe we think of the protesters Whalers quarterback wilderness.” Anthony Fruean, a at Standing Rock off on a far-off sophomore, cheers You say reservation, standing up to a pipeline, on his teammates at Cathy Parker Field, Matthew McGee: fighting for their land rights. as they work toward “It’s sad that we have to resort to its But the demographic reality is that their first state title in the team’s profitability, but at seven out of 10 Native Americans 11-year history. this point nothing else live in cities ... 3.7 million Native Photographs by seems to work.” Ash Adams. . So we are Chris Ramias: “I feel people live in cities See the photo story like talking about actually, surprisingly to many, online: hcne.ws/ these lands in terms whaler-victory a primarily urban demographic. of their profitability, is getting sucked into — Julian Brave NoiseCat, speaking on the “I never meant to be one of those people who would trade the framing used by oil, gas and mining. West Obsessed podcast about his ”story on redrock bones of desert and mountain crags and the velvet nakedness the urban and rural housing crises faced by Wild places have Native Americans. Brian Calvert of tundra for the claustrophobic press of forest.” intrinsic value that is unrelated to the fact Listen online at hcne.ws/urban-reality —Sarah Gilman /The Last Word on Nothing, from her essay “How to learn to love a new landscape.” that you can recreate Read it online: hcne.ws/new-love on them and profit from that recreation.” Andy Groz: Debbie Baptiste The killing of Colten Boushie “ ‘Profitability.’ The holds up a picture In mid-February, Canadian farmer Gerald Stanley, who was entire point of public of her son, Colten charged with the murder of a 22-year-old First Nations man lands is that they ARE Boushie, as she named Colten Boushie, was acquitted. The not-guilty decision NOT FOR PROFIT; if leaves court during from an all-white jury enflamed tensions between Indigenous they were, we could the trial of Gerald people and the Canadian justice system; many First Nations just hand them over to Stanley, the white people saw the trial as another example of institutionalized private concerns.” farmer accused of degradation and mistreatment of Indigenous people. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada has promised to take killing Boushie, Read more online: steps to mend the country’s troubled relationship with First a member of the hcne.ws/profitable- Nations people. But the Stanley trial, along with a perceived Cree Red Pheasant wildness and lack of action on cases concerning missing and murdered First Nation, Facebook.com/ Indigenous women, as well as statistics that show Native in Battleford, highcountrynews Saskatchewan. people at a higher risk of death in police encounters, creates a Liam Richards/The persistent distrust in the criminal justice system. Canadian Press via AP Graham Lee Brewer Read more online: hcne.ws/unjust-killing

Never miss a story. Sign up for the HCN newsletter at hcn.org/enewsletter. www.hcn.org High Country News 3 Letters Send letters to [email protected] or Editor, HCN, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. m

More than one pupfish per smile o

High Country News c Executive director/Publisher . Paul Larmer Thanks to Laura Pritchett (“Laughter, ns oo Editor-in-Chief America, Death Valley,” HCN, 2/5/18) art Brian Calvert and her sweetheart, Kevin, for paying c

SENIOR EDITOR gle homage to laughter, sorrow and native a Jodi Peterson c / Art director desert fishes. Death Valley’s pupfish r Cindy Wehling species set an especially good example

Deputy editor, digital for us in these dark and heated times: e Beele Kate Schimel at They keep swimming even when the wa- N Associate EDITORs Tay Wiles ter in the tub is trickling down the drain Maya L. Kapoor and what’s left behind is hot, salty, silty Assistant EDITORS or predatory. Paige Blankenbuehler Anna V. Smith However, Death Valley National WRITERS ON THE RANGE Park and nearby desert wetlands host editor Betsy Marston more than one endangered species and Associate PHOTO EDITOR subspecies of pupfish that exist “no- Brooke Warren where else on the planet.” The national Copy editOR Diane Sylvain park alone provides intermittently Contributing editorS drying shelter for at least two species Tristan Ahtone, Graham and four subspecies of pupfishes. East of Brewer, Cally Carswell, Sarah Gilman, Ruxandra the park, a private landowner, state and Guidi, Michelle Nijhuis, federal biologists, and a small nonprofit supervisors (who are sworn to uphold Water connections Jonathan Thompson have helped paddle the Shoshone pup- CorrespondentS the California State Constitution) for a fish back from the dry edge of disaster. Thank you for investigating threats Krista Langlois, Sarah vote of support to leave California, and Tory, Joshua Zaffos Also east of the park, Ash Meadows Na- to the San Pedro River east of Tuc- then walking away from any relation- Editorial Fellow tional Wildlife Refuge (where Pritchett son, Arizona (“Federal agency retracts ship with that body when that support Emily Benson likely saw “little blue flashes in the deep opposition to Arizona project,” HCN, Editorial Interns was not forthcoming (“A Separatist pool”) shelters two pupfish species and 1/22/18). The river is unique in that it Carl Segerstrom State of Mind,” HCN, 1/22/18). Once the Jessica Kutz three subspecies, all endangered. Ama- is one of the last free-flowing desert supervisors declined to fund a county- Development Director rgosa River pupfish still dart through streams in the United States, sup- Laurie Milford wide vote, SOJers could have invested the Amargosa River almost all the way porting riparian habitats for aquatic Philanthropy Advisor the time and effort necessary to gather to Badwater in Death Valley National and terrestrial species of conserva- Alyssa Pinkerton enough certifiable signatures to still Development Assistant Park. Tecopa pupfish, which also lived tion interest. In the San Pedro Valley, place the issue on a ballot, but instead Christine List east of the park, are gone forever. groundwater and surface water are con- they opted for a few hundred hastily Marketing & Promotions They’re the first animal to be removed nected. Thus, wells may pump ground- Manager JoAnn Kalenak gathered signatures that I understand from the endangered species list due to water that would otherwise flow to the Events & Business Partner may have included significant numbers Coordinator Laura Dixon extinction. river and also eventually pull water out of unregistered individuals. WEB DEVELOPER Eric Strebel The upshot, for Laura and Kevin, is of the river towards well fields, result- “A Separatist State of Mind” quotes Database/IT administrator an invitation to come back and admire ing in reduced streamflow or drying Mr. Baird claiming, “We got 51 percent Alan Wells more pupfish species — the West isn’t the river. How to manage groundwater DIRECTOR OF ENGAGEMENT of the population in Plumas County. lost, not yet, and not for pupfishes. It’s and surface water as a linked resource Gretchen King We got 40,000 signatures. We didn’t Accountant just a bit broken. The upshot for all of remains an important policy question need their board.” Unfortunately for Mr. Erica Howard us is that we’re still surrounded by tiny, being played out across the Western Baird, Plumas County has fewer than Accounts Assistant irreplaceable animals that perform as- U.S. today. For example, Sarah Tory’s Mary Zachman 19,000 total residents, so he was either tounding acts of survival every day. We recent hcn.org article on the Texas-New Customer Service Manager misquoted or dealing with “alterna- owe it to them not only to laugh in the Mexico Supreme Court case highlights Christie Cantrell tive facts.” Without doubt, the sparsely Customer Service face of despair, but also to do our best the interstate dispute over how ground- populated northern counties of Califor- Kathy Martinez (Circ. to oppose bad jokes being fobbed off as water pumping may have reduced Rio Systems Administrator), nia are heavily subsidized by the rest government (e.g., suppression of climate Grande flows (“A Southwest water Lisa Delaney, Pam Peters, of the state’s taxpayers for a wide array Doris Teel, Tammy York change data, rollbacks of the collabora- dispute reaches the Supreme Court,” of governmental services. So maybe it GrantWriter Janet Reasoner tive Greater Sage Grouse Conservation hcne.ws/groundwater-fight). In ad- is actually a relief for the handful of [email protected] Plan and Desert Renewable Energy dition, California’s 2014 Sustainable [email protected] Northern Californians who were duped Conservation Plan) so we can all con- Groundwater Management Act includes [email protected] into believing the state of Jefferson [email protected] tinue to co-exist, even when we’re up to a unique provision that groundwater be [email protected] could be functional that on Feb. 1, the our dorsal fins in hot water. pumped at rates that avoid undesirable FOUNDER Tom Bell U.S. District Court for the Eastern results, which include “depletions of Board of Directors Ceal Klingler District of California dismissed the suit interconnected surface water that have John Belkin, Colo. Bishop, California filed by state of Jefferson supporters Beth Conover, Colo. significant and unreasonable adverse and others against California for better Jay Dean, Calif. impacts on beneficial uses of the surface Bob Fulkerson, Nev. representation. water.” It will be interesting to see how Anastasia Greene, Wash. State of dysfunction Wayne Hare, Colo. Piers Strailey these legal and policy actions translate Laura Helmuth, Md. The Mark Baird-led push for state Quincy, California to practical water resource management John Heyneman, Wyo. Osvel Hinojosa, Mexico of Jefferson endorsement in Plumas strategies. Samaria Jaffe, Calif. County, California, consisted of relent- Brad Wolaver Nicole Lampe, Ore. lessly pressuring the county board of Marla Painter, N.M. Austin, Texas Bryan Pollard, Ark. Raynelle Rino, Calif. Estee Rivera Murdock, D.C. High Country News is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) independent 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post Dan Stonington, Wash. media organization that covers the issues that define the offices. OP STMASTER: Send address changes to High Country News, Rick Tallman, Colo. High American West. Its mission is to inform and inspire people Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles Luis Torres, N.M. to act on behalf of the region’s diverse natural and human in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. Andy Wiessner, Colo. Country communities. (ISSN/0191/5657) is published bi-weekly, 22 Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: Florence Williams, D.C. News times a year, by High Country News, 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, CO 800-905-1155 | hcn.org Printed on recycled paper. 4 High Country News March 5, 2018 CURRENTS

was 7 months old, in mid-December, and Unexpected her tag’s radio signal vanished. On Jan. 2, Condor 871 reappeared, singed but soar- resilience ing. Biologists theorize that the young e bird, who had begun taking short practice f li Western wildlife is surviving flights just before the fire, finally fledged d a run of bad luck because her nest was about to ignite. Wil and

By Maya L. Kapoor Crisis can bring a population together — to sh Fi f

spawn, in the case of one rare fish species. o nt

On Jan. 23, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake e he West is a challenging place to live struck in the Gulf of Alaska. Minutes

these days, with fires and mudslides, artm T later, some 2,000 miles away, the quake p

droughts and heat waves — not to men- De a

triggered foot-high sloshing in Devils i tion the political climate. But Westerners rn

Hole, a water-filled cavern in Death Val- o are nothing if not resilient, and that in- f ley National Park that’s home to the criti- li a

cludes the nonhumans. High Country C cally endangered Devils Hole pupfish. But News rounded up a few inspiring exam- park staffers were not worried about the ples of wildlife adapting in tumultuous earthquake’s effects on the fish. According create ocean acidification, which kills times. In another example of to Ambre Chaudoin, a biological techni- sea butterflies by weakening their shells. resilience, two black cian at the park, the pupfish respond to Recently, though, sea butterflies near bears were released Sometimes, you just need to have a fire disturbance by mating. The males turned Greenland have been found repairing back into the wild after lit under you. Like the Thomas Fire, for a brilliant blue, their spawning color, their shells from the inside with calcium their paws were badly one condor chick. According to Audubon, even though spawning usually happens in carbonate patches. The shells’ outsides burned in a wildfire. Condor 871 — as the U.S. Fish and Wild- This bear rests after spring and fall, not January. have also proven more resistant to corro- life Service’s Condor Recovery Program tilapia skin bandages sion than expected. If the tiny creatures dubbed her — wouldn’t fledge, staying were applied to hasten Tiny acts of survival make an ocean of return out to be more resilient to an acidi- in the nest long after most chicks leave healing, the first time silience. Pteropods, or sea butterflies, are fying ocean than anticipated, that could home. The Thomas Fire burned through this method had been no bigger than pinheads. Yet these tiny mean that marine food webs in places like used in the U.S. her canyon north of Los Angeles when she marine snails are important food sources the Pacific Northwest — where the ocean for animals such as whales and salmon. is naturally more acidic to begin with — Read more online: Maya L. Kapoor writes from Tucson, Arizona. Marine biologists have long known that may be better able to withstand climate hcne.ws/resilient-wildlife  @Kapoor_ML human-caused carbon dioxide emissions change.

Year

Open waters 2021 There’s bipartisan displeasure with Interior’s plan for offshore drilling 2021 2023 By Maya L. Kapoor 2021 2023 2021 2023 Proposed lease areas by sale year

etails of the Interior Department’s draft five-year offshore 2020-2024 2020 D drilling plan have lawmakers on both sides of the aisle con- 2020 Proposed oil and gas leasing areas* 2022 2022 2024 cerned. Much of the nation’s coastline previously had been closed, Presidential withdrawal area but this new draft plan, released in January, opens more than 98 percent of coastal waters to leasing, including all of California’s, 2020 Oregon’s and Washington’s and most of Alaska’s. 2022 The Democratic governors of California, Oregon and Wash- 2024 ington have written multiple letters to Interior Secretary Ryan

2020 2020 Zinke, noting their states’ economic dependence on clean coastal 2019 2020 2022 -2024 2023 2021 -2024 waters for everything from billion-dollar shellfish and fishing in- 2024** 2024 2023 dustries, to tourism, recreation and “scenic and spiritual bounty.” The states’ attorneys general also wrote, expressing their 2023 concerns about potential impacts of offshore drilling, as well as * These boundaries represent initial planning. the legality of the process used in developing the program. And though Alaska’s Republican congressional delegation praised the 2023 Alaska new plan, they concluded by asking Zinke to reconsider and close 2023 almost all of the waters around Alaska. 2023 2021 The draft offshore leasing program is open for public 2023 2023 comment through March 9. Several more steps remain 2023 2023 before the plan is finalized, after which different regions 2023 will open for bidding according to the agency’s calendar. 2023 Alaska’s Beaufort Sea opens in 2019, while Southern Cali- 2023 fornia opens in 2020. 2023

www.hcn.org High Country News 5 south Puget Sound, argues that the bill threatens streams — and the fish that live The fight over Washington’s wells there — by unraveling the Hirst ruling’s Rural growth competes with fish, environmental safeguards. “Well, the new bill screws it up royally,” Dickison says, farmers and waterways because well drilling near already dwin- By Emily Benson dling steelhead and salmon streams can now resume. In one watershed, the legal battle has New products and gear n 2016, a Washington Supreme Court Thanks in part to stories like this, in also discouraged many rural residents were on display at the I ruling put the brakes on rural home- 2017, some state legislators refused to from taking advantage of a program that Outdoor Retailer show building in several areas across the state. pass a $4 billion budget for projects like could help address the underlying conflict in Denver. Brooke Warren The so-called Hirst decision required school and sewer repairs unless rural ar- over limited water. Thousands of house- counties to prove that new household eas were reopened to well-drilling. The po- hold wells dot the landscape around the THE LATEST wells wouldn’t drain needed water from litical mayhem dragged on through three Little Spokane River, nestled between nearby streams before they issued build- special legislative sessions; the final one the Huckleberry Range and the Selkirk Backstory ing permits. But last month, state legisla- ended in July without a resolution. Mountains in the northeastern corner of The Trump tors, under pressure from landowners and This year, though, legislators acted Washington. Many of those wells siphon administration, led by building and realtors’ associations, passed quickly, passing a bill on Jan. 18 that re- off the river, which is connected to shal- Utah’s congressional a bill that, with some caveats, allows new quires local governments in several wa- low groundwater beneath its streambed. delegation, proposed wells. The challenge of balancing rural unprecedented tersheds to develop plans to compensate So two out of every three years or so, the rollbacks to public- growth with the needs of other water us- for new wells. But the mitigation plans Little Spokane’s flows fall below the state- lands protections last ers and the environment extends far be- won’t go into effect for another one to three mandated minimums for protecting fish winter. The outdoor yond Washington state. How it plays out years, and in the meantime, new wells can and the environment, creating a clash recreation industry, here and across the region will determine once again be drilled in basins where de- between nature and further development. which depends on how many more people can join the ranks velopment had been halted. However, the In response, Spokane County, where public lands for survival, of the millions of rural Westerners who legislation also includes a new $500 well- most of the wells in the Little Spokane Ba- fought back. But it’s rely on domestic water wells. drilling fee and a tighter cap on water use sin are located, organized a water bank. unclear how much In Washington, such wells account in some watersheds. Mary Verner, the By buying large water rights, then split- political and economic for only about 1 percent of the water con- manager of the Department of Ecology’s ting them into smaller chunks to be sold clout the industry has (“Outdoor rec industry sumed statewide during the summer, but water resources program, says those pro- to people building homes, the bank could defends public lands,” depending on their location, their impacts visions appear to be designed to “ensure allow for new wells while protecting the HCN, 2/10/17). This can loom much larger. In Spokane Coun- that it’s not just a free-for-all until these river from being drained. But in mid-Jan- winter, gear companies ty, for example, the Washington Depart- watershed plans are adopted.” uary, the new bill made joining the water carried out their ment of Ecology attributes more than 11 But the new legislation may perpetu- bank an unnecessary expense. Out of 34 threat to move the percent of summertime water use to do- ate an old West Coast conundrum: Where people who had signed up for the program, renowned Outdoor mestic wells. But even though domestic environmental needs and development only 10 bought into it. Furthermore, says Retailer show out of wells are a major part of the state’s water collide, salmon can easily become collat- Mike Hermanson, the water resources Salt Lake City. The system — and, in some places, can draw eral damage. Jeff Dickison, a policy ana- manager for the county, the county is of- multi-day event debuted down nearby creeks — they aren’t regu- in Denver in late lyst and the assistant natural resources fering those purchasers refunds. “I imag- January. lated as strictly as they could be. director for the Squaxin Island Tribe in ine many will take them,” he says. Though wells are subject to water law Followup that says that, during shortages, newer Now, the federal uses should be cut back in favor of more se- government has nior ones, the Washington Department of recognized outdoor Ecology has never shut down a household recreation as an well for affecting an older water right. “I official industry. think they’re really the last vestige of the In early February, Wild West as far as how water gets used,” the Commerce says Dan Von Seggern, the staff attorney Department for the Center for Environmental Law & announced that Policy in Seattle. outdoor recreation contributed more The Hirst decision temporarily tamed than $373 billion that watery Wild West by requiring coun- toward the gross ties to show that water was legally avail- domestic product in able before new wells were drilled. But the 2016, about 2 percent ruling also triggered pockets of turmoil of the total. It’s the in several watersheds across the state, first time that the because it stopped people from building GDP report included homes on land they’d already purchased. separate figures on “We just kind of had to go into a hold- the industry’s value. “This further validates ing pattern,” says Chris Basham, who, our broad and growing with his wife, Sara, wanted to build an economic impact,” said energy-efficient home north of Spokane. Amy Roberts, executive Now, a year and a half after they had director of the Outdoor hoped to be living on 10 acres amid the Industry Association. pines, they have yet to begin building. Jodi Peterson Emily Benson is an editorial fellow at Household wells in the Little Spokane River Basin, in northeast Washington, are contributing to High Country News.  @erbenson1 low flows in the river. Courtesy of Beacon Hill Spokane

6 High Country News March 5, 2018 the year. When I asked her how the Air t A desert bighorn Force is ultimately held accountable for sheep in the Desert land stewardship, she said, “It’s an excel- National Wildlife lent question. You don’t know what you Refuge, where the don’t know.” She’s most worried about species has a uniquely intact habitat. what will happen if the Air Force kicks Courtesy of Friends of her agency off that part of the refuge, as it Nevada Wilderness has proposed. Sprunger supports allowing the Air Force to continue using its range, but opposes expansion or allowing the military to take sole jurisdiction. Aside from environmental concerns, expansion worries Southern Paiute tribal members, as well as hunters and recre- ationists. Sprunger estimates about 40,000 people each year visit the refuge’s rugged mountains and Joshua tree forests, mostly entering through the southern tip near Las The Nevada front Vegas. That entrance would remain acces- sible, but much of the western slope of the The Air Force wants control of 300,000 more desert acres iconic Sheep Range would be off-limits. By Tay Wiles Loss of access is a major concern for many in the 350-member Moapa Band of Paiutes, whose reservation lies just to the ne morning this January, I accom- roads that could disturb wildlife habitat. east, and whose broader ancestral lands panied a group of environmental ad- In its 1,000-page draft environmental O span much of southern Nevada. On the vocates to the northern tip of the Desert impact statement, the Air Force explains refuge, harvesting medicinal herbs and National Wildlife Refuge, 100 miles north that modern aircraft, which fly higher big game often requires permits. But on of Las Vegas. A short hike brought us to and faster than ever, require more space Air Force land, the Moapa have to make a a boulder with a petroglyph of bighorn to train safely. The Nevada range is the special appointment to access traditional sheep, eroded after thousands of years nation’s pre-eminent Air Force training resources. “People say, “It’s just desert,’ of exposure. A more recent traveler left a ground and hosts dozens of allied forces but it means a lot to us,” Tribal Council mark nearby as well, etching the letters from around the world. Every other air Chairman Greg Anderson said. “U” and “S.” “I wonder who did the ‘US,’” space in the country is saturated with The Air Force will incorporate public said Christian Gerlach, the Sierra Club’s commercial flights, making southern Ne- comments into a final environmental im- Nevada organizer. “Was it the Air Force or vada the only option for expansion. pact statement by the end of this year. It one of the cavalrymen?” By cavalrymen, The Department of Defense has a mixed hopes to pass a withdrawal and expansion he meant federal troops encountering record when it comes to land stewardship plan through Congress by 2020. bands of Paiute in this region in the 19th in the West. Ecosystems sometimes thrive century. By Air Force, he meant the entity under military jurisdiction, because they trying to gain control of this land today. are protected from the kind of develop- The Air Force’s proposed plan for range expansion President Franklin D. Roosevelt first ment that eats up open space elsewhere. A protected the area in 1936, as a game range program at the Barry M. Goldwater Range Nevada Test and Training Range for bighorn sheep. But just four years lat- in Arizona, for example, helped rescue Proposed range expansion er, the U.S. War Department began using the endangered Sonoran pronghorn from Desert National Wildlife Refuge part of it as a bombing and gunnery range. the brink of extinction after debilitating Since then, the Air Force has gained a total drought in the early 2000s. A buffer zone Joint range and refuge land of 2.9 million acres for its Nevada Test and outside Washington’s Hanford Site, where Training Range. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife plutonium was once produced for nuclear Nevada Test and Training Range Service co-manages 846,000 of those acres weapons, became an accidental wilder- 2.95 million acres, as part of the Desert National Wildlife ness where biodiversity thrives. The mili- no public access Refuge — the largest federal wildlife ref- tary has its own experts to ensure train- uge in the Lower 48. Now, the Air Force ing activity adheres to environmental and hopes to gain sole jurisdiction and expand archeological protection laws. its range to include another 300,000 feder- “If we see a sheep, we are not allowed 17,960 acres al acres, most of it refuge land, leaving the to bomb it,” James Sample, an employee refuge with less than 500,000 acres. at Colorado State University on detail Nevada Opponents fear the expansion could at the Pentagon to help facilitate the Air National threaten a uniquely intact habitat for Force expansion, told me at a public hear- Security Desert Site desert bighorn sheep, the threatened des- ing last month in Beatty, Nevada. National Wildlife ert tortoise and hundreds of other plants Refuge manager Amy Sprunger said Refuge and animals. A dry lakebed, a relic of the the land under co-management with the NEVADA landscape’s prehistoric past, could become Air Force is in “pretty good shape.” Many CALIFORNIA a landing strip, kicking up dust and dis- places are even pristine, she said, “be- rupting wildlife corridors. The Air Force cause of national wildlife refuge system 227,027 acres 48,899 acres has also proposed building 30 “emitters,” regulations.” The Air Force “is regulated to simulate threats in training exer- more or less by us.” Sprunger considers N 7,621 acres cises, which would require a network of the current 750 bighorn sheep a healthy herd. She gets annual reports from the Air 5 miles Las Vegas Associate Editor Tay Wiles writes from Oakland, Force, but her own staffers are allowed SOURCE: NEVADA TEST AND TRAININGSo RANGEurce: IMPACT Nevada ANALYSIS Test andREPORT Tra | i nBROOKEing Ran WARREN/HIGHge Impact A COUNTRYnalysis Re NEWSport California.  @taywiles onto the testing range only three weeks of Brooke Warren/High Country News

www.hcn.org High Country News 7 An abandoned tradition Why an abalone fishing ban is a hardship for coastal tribes By Debra Utacia Krol

he earrings are only a couple of inches Clint McKay, a cultural consultant with urchins ate everything in sight, including T long, but the masterfully carved the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo about 90 percent of the kelp, resulting in salmon look like they’ve leaped from the Indians in Sonoma County. “We need to today’s “urchin barrens.” McKay said that, water to whisper in the wearer’s ear. maintain the relationship we have with when he dives, it’s like walking across Their glowing red hues and iridescent the ocean and the plants and animals purple carpets of urchins. opalescence caress the eye. These colors within it, or we’ll lose that connection.” “A big barren used to stretch a mile,” occur naturally in the medium in which said Cynthia Catton, a marine biologist Leah Mata, a Northern Chumash artist, or millennia, the 20 or so coastal with the department, who studies kelp works: the shells of the red abalone, F California tribes have relied on abalone and abalone populations. This barren or Haliotis rufescens. as an important source of protein, har- stretches for 100 miles, and the ecosystem Abalone shells and the rich meat inside vesting the shellfish at sustainable levels. may take decades to regain equilibrium. have sustained Mata’s people throughout Commercial fishing began in the late 1800s Poachers also exact a heavy toll. McKay their existence. And the Chumash are just and gained intensity over the years. By the says that state officials say poachers take one of the coastal Native communities for 1990s, several species had nearly been as much, if not more, abalone than legal whom abalone holds a central place in cul- wiped out, prompting wildlife officials to fishing each year. State authorities are try- ture and cuisine, and in jewelry, regalia halt the practice. Recreational fishing was ing to crack down, but when a single abalo- and ceremonies. permitted, but the harvest was strictly lim- ne can fetch $100 or more on the black mar- Now, however, a “perfect storm” of ited to allow the invertebrate to recover. ket, stopping poachers is nearly impossible. overfishing and climate change is driving In other states, tribal members typi- the abalone perilously close to extinction, cally can engage in subsistence activities ata says she may have to quit sell- pushing the California Department of outside recreational fishing and hunting M ing her award-winning abalone shell Fish and Wildlife to cancel the 2018 aba- regulations, thanks to sovereign territory jewelry, which helps support her family. lone fishing season. rights, as with Alaskan Natives who hunt And given the reduced fishing seasons The ban poses potential economic harm seals, whales and other animals. How- and takes, many tribal members fear that to the estimated $24 to $44 million sport- ever, since Congress refused to ratify the this tie to their heritage is in danger of be- fishing industry, but it could spell subsis- treaties negotiated with California tribes ing broken. tence and cultural disaster for the tribes. in 1851-’52, they lack subsistence rights Sonke Mastrup, an environmental Since California tribes lack treaty rights and are subject to California wildlife and program manager with the state wildlife or other federal or state laws allowing coastal management laws. department, says California can help them to pursue their traditional lifestyle, A toxic algae bloom in 2011 and an Native artists find a reliable source of they have little leverage to seek cultural or unusual mass of warm water the follow- shells, using dead abalone on the ocean subsistence exemptions from the ban. ing year caused a massive depletion of floor and shorelines. The agency may also “I’m absolutely heartbroken,” said kelp forests, the principal food source for be able to supply some tribal communities several coastal species, including abalone. with small amounts of abalone meat from Debra Utacia Krol is an enrolled member of the And the kelp that survived faced a greater research labs. Xolon Salinan Tribe from Central California. threat: purple urchins. After their primary But that’s not enough for Mata and  @debkrol predator fell victim to a viral disease, the McKay, who worry they could soon lose a vital part of their culture, spiritual beliefs p A pair of abalone and history. Abalone shells adorn their re- earrings made by galia, and its meat has long filled the bel- Northern Chumash lies of their ancestors as well as those of artist Leah Mata. their people today. Courtesy of Leah Mata And even though tribes are represented on both the California Coastal Commission and California Department u A diver measures of Fish and Wildlife, many Natives feel a red abalone on the California coast. their concerns are drowned in the noise of Abalone must be seven a state with 33 million people. “Western inches or longer to be culture has taken our cultural resources legally harvested. for themselves,” Mata says. Pk atric Foy/California All this adds up to a heavy cultural Department of Fish and Wildlife price. “I look around at our elders, at my dad,” McKay said. “This has been part of his life, his culture, his Native tradition for 82 years. But somebody is going to look at him and say, ‘You can’t have this anymore.’ “If this continues for several years, they’re telling our elders, ‘You won’t eat this food again in your lifetime,’ ” he said. “That’s really scary to think that that may happen.”

8 High Country News March 5, 2018 Beavers are a THE LATEST common rodent, but they’re a keystone Backstory species important Nutria, 20-pound to the survival of rodents native to endangered salmon. South America, S arah Koenigsberg, courtesy of The Beaver destroy wetlands, Believers degrade water quality and damage flood-control levees. Imported to the U.S. by fur entrepreneurs in the late 19th century, they quickly colonized 15 states, mostly in the Southeast. California eradicated them in the mid-1960s, but they multiplied in Washington and Oregon (“Toothy nuisance moves north,” HCN, 10/31/05). Today, they’re found throughout western Washington and biological communities. In Oregon, a host Oregon’s central The Beaver State’s of threatened and endangered salmon and coastal region. steelhead runs depend on them. By killing beavers without accounting for the Followup bedeviled mascot destruction of rodent-built critical habitat, Over the past the environmental groups argue, Wildlife year, nutria have A novel legal strategy seeks to protect beavers from the feds Services risks jeopardizing federally pro- reappeared in three California counties, By Ben Goldfarb tected fish. and the state’s It’s a curious strategy with little prec- Department of edent. “There’s a nice legal point here, but Fish and Wildlife is or three decades, Susan Sherosick has forms many uncontroversial functions, like I’m not sure what the practical implica- asking residents to F lived on 32 acres deep in the southwest vaccinating raccoons against rabies and tions will be,” says Pat Parenteau, an en- report sightings so Oregon woods, in a peaceful hollow brack- controlling feral pigs, it’s notorious among dangered species expert at the Vermont officials can estimate eted by streams that flow into the Umpqua conservationists for killing native preda- Law School. But it’s also a sign that soci- how many giant River. Out here, raccoons and black bears tors, eliminating 332 cougars, 415 wolves, ety’s relationship to beavers is changing, rodents are out there. weave through the willows, and a resident and over 76,000 coyotes in 2016 alone. It and, if it succeeds, it could spur agencies Nutria are classified cougar deposits twisted scat behind her also killed more than 21,000 beavers na- and landowners to seek new approaches as invasive, so it’s illegal to possess or house. Every Thanksgiving, salmon swim tionwide last year, including 319 in Oregon. to living alongside meddlesome rodents. transport them. “We into her front yard to spawn. Among Wildlife Services’ fiercest antag- “This,” says Jakob Shockey, a wildlife don’t know if someone Sherosick, like many Westerners, also onists is the nonprofit Center for Biological biologist who specializes in beaver man- set one loose or if lives in uneasy detente with another, more Diversity. The center has sued the agency agement, “is the legal argument we’ve all there was an isolated challenging species. Beavers routinely fell in Idaho, California, Colorado and other been waiting for.” population out there her cottonwoods and convert her creeks to states, accusing it of failure to comply with that we didn’t know wetlands. Twice, she has asked the county the National Environmental Policy Act, the erhaps no state is as closely linked about,” department to send a trapper, though she tries to leave law that requires federal agencies to as- P to a wild animal as Oregon is to bea- spokesman Peter Tira the animals alone. But when new dams sess the environmental impacts of their ac- vers. They are Oregon’s official animal, told NPR. “But we do flooded her house this winter, she drew the tions. So it shouldn’t have been surprising the mascot of its largest university, the know we have to get rid of them.” line. “Pretty soon I couldn’t flush the toilet,” when the center, along with the Western source of its nickname. When, in 1849, the Jodi Peterson she recalls. “It was like living in a marsh.” Environmental Law Center and Northwest Oregon Territory defied the federal gov- When Sherosick called for a trapper Environmental Advocates, notified Wildlife ernment by forming its own mint, beavers this time, though, she never heard back. Services this November that it planned to featured on the coins. To this day, a gold- She isn’t sure why her pleas went unan- take the agency to court over its Oregon en beaver, waddling across a navy field, swered, but it’s likely she’d become caught beaver-killing. But this time, rather than adorns the state’s flag. in the middle of an unusual legal battle, citing NEPA, the center was wielding a The Beaver State’s fixation reflects an one that could upend how the West’s wild- much tougher law — the Endangered Spe- intimate historical connection. Fur trap- life agencies manage the region’s most in- cies Act. pers, lured Northwest by the promise of fluential rodent. At first blush, this seemed perplexing. “hairy banknotes,” explored the Columbia The case revolves around Wildlife Ser- The Endangered Species Act is designed to River’s tributaries, established the re- vices, the branch of the U.S. Department conserve rare flora and fauna; meanwhile, gion’s first non-Native settlements, and of Agriculture tasked with managing prob- beavers are ubiquitous, found from Alas- pioneered the Oregon Trail. The trade lematic animals. Although the agency per- ka’s tundra line to northern Mexico. This pillaged streams so thoroughly that the case, however, hinges on Castor canaden- state banned beaver trapping from 1899 Ben Goldfarb is the author of the forthcoming sis’s unique environmental influence. Bea- to 1918. The animal’s population soon be- book Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers vers are a “keystone species,” an organism gan to recover — just as Oregon’s human Emmanuel Keller/CC FLickr and Why They Matter.  @ben_a_goldfarb whose pond-creating powers support entire Please see Beavers, page 23 www.hcn.org High Country News 9 THE HCN COMMUNITY

RESEARCH FUND Thank you, Research Fund donors, for loving the West’s wonders

Since 1971, reader contributions have made Michael McCally & Christine Cassel | it possible for HCN to report on the American Santa Fe, NM West. Your tax-deductible gift directly funds Ann Mullins, The Margaret A. Frank Fund | nonprofit, independent journalism. Aspen, CO Thank you for supporting our hardworking Rachel Myron | Tenakee Springs, AK journalists. Margaret Piety | Indianapolis, IN Rick Strachan | Lopez Island, WA Fred & Helen Unterleitner | Placerville, CA

Utah’s Greatest Wonders Sarah Powley | West Lafayette, IN By Christopher Cogley and Rich Briggs. Ericka Prechtel | Salt Lake City, UT Farewell to a longtime editor 138 pages, hardcover: $29.99. Kenneth E. Ragland | San Pedro, CA Plain Sight Publishing, an imprint of Cedar Kim Ragotzkie | Ashton, ID Big changes are afoot at High Paonia transplant Teresa Keller Fort Inc., 2017. Ken Ransford | Basalt, CO Country News. After 13 years stopped in one afternoon to here, our senior editor, take a tour with her 5-year- Home to stunning rock formations and Bill Rau & Susan Roche | Castle Valley, UT majestic stone arches, Utah’s national Patricia Rauscher | Cortez, CO Jodi Peterson, is headed out for old daughter, Indigo. Teresa parks evoke a sense of awe from millions Mr. & Mrs. Robert S. Ridgely | a new adventure. Jodi came to started reading High Country of visitors every year. With their prose and North Sandwich, NH the magazine as an intern, in News when she moved to the photographs, writer Christopher Cogley Peter E. Sartucci | Lafayette, CO 2004, and went on to become Colorado Rockies in 2005, and photographer Rich Briggs capture Mike Schneegas & Nancy Skinner | Bend, OR managing editor, a post she left though she has since (gasp!) let that beauty in their book, Utah’s Greatest Gil Sharp & Anne Saxby | Hood River, OR in 2015 to focus on editing and her subscription lapse. Drawn Wonders, A Photographic Journey of the Steve Shipe & Marta Pasztor | Seattle, WA mentoring. Now, she is taking to the notion of small-town Five National Parks. Ann Sjoberg | Fort Collins, CO her passion for the West to a living, she relocated to Paonia Each chapter is dedicated to one of the local nonprofit, The Nature with her husband and two chil- state’s national parks, with Cogley providing Morgan Smith | Santa Fe, NM Connection, which provides fun, insight into the geology that shaped these Richard Smythe | Sister Bay, WI dren over the summer. Rex and extraordinary landscapes, while educating Stephen J. Spaulding | Cascade, CO educational outdoor experiences Liz Thomas of Grand Junction readers about the area’s history and Page Spencer | Anchorage, AK for youth and community mem- dropped by recently while on a early inhabitants. Briggs’ images provide Judee & Chuck Stanley | Idaho Falls, ID bers in western Colorado. “drive-about,” inspired to visit breathtaking looks at iconic formations Tyrone & Deidra Steen | Colorado Springs, CO “Jodi has been an integral after coming across old copies of like Delicate Arch and Cathedral Valley, part of HCN, and we will miss High Country News at their lo- Nancy Stephanz | Port Angeles, WA photographed in every season of the year, at her supernatural eye for detail cal gym. Avid ATVers, they said Paul Stettner | Steamboat Springs, CO every time of day. If you’re itching for a quick and flaws in logic, which she they love exploring the beauty Philip & Eileen Taulbee | Las Cruces, NM armchair journey to the desert, this book is brought to bear on all the of our public lands — and they well worth your time. Jessica Kutz Cynthia F. Taylor | Erie, CO enigmas of the West,” Editor-in- left Paonia as new subscribers! Byron Thomas | Scotts Valley, CA Chief Brian Calvert said. Jodi In February, we bid farewell Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Dana & Lindsey Thomas | Redlands, CA said she is grateful for all the to Abigail Censky, an under- © Rich Briggs and Cedar Fort Inc. Robert Utter | Santa Rosa, CA Used by permission. years she has been able to work graduate from Colorado College, Carol Van Dorn | Prineville, OR alongside such talented, pas- who spent three weeks with us Mike & Wendie Vermillion | Sisters, OR sionate people. “That has been producing a radio documentary David & Barbara Viskochil | Salt Lake City, UT one of the most fun things about about the history of HCN and David R. Gillette | Golden, CO Todd Vogel & Christine Iversen | Bishop, CA this job,” she said, “working its legacy for Western journal- Gary & Joanne Goble | Denver, CO Kira Wages | Buffalo, WY with people who really believe ism. We look forward to hearing Gary Grief & Dorothy Wells | Taos, NM Lillian & Jim Wakeley | Dolores, CO in what we are doing and give it on KVNF, our local commu- | Seattle, WA Nathan Grothe Alvin & Margaret Wall | Holyoke, CO their all to it.” Fortunately, Jodi nity radio station. Maureen & Bob Hall | Crested Butte, CO Clifford & Lian Wallman | Midway, UT will remain in Paonia and keep Finally, we have a few cor- Keith Hauer-Lowe | Roseville, MN Judy Walton & Stephen Frenkel | Portland, OR in touch, working for HCN as a rections. In “Saints and sin- Moss Henry | Santa Rosa, CA Richard M. Walton | Billings, MT contributing editor. ners in the Southwest” (HCN, Charles Hogan | Lafayette, CO Jonathan Weber | Fairfax, CA At the end of January, at a 2/05/18) we incorrectly stated Eric & Betty Janes | Mancos, CO Pamela Wells | Sandpoint, ID quarterly meeting, Anastasia that Breaking Bad was an HBO Bill Jenkins | Leavenworth, WA Patricia Wendel | Tucson, AZ Greene became the newest mem- show; it aired on AMC. In “A Rudolph L. Johnson | Las Vegas, NV John Wentworth | Mammoth Lakes, CA ber of our board of directors. tale of two housing crises, rural Mark Kastler | Centennial, CO Robert Van Wetter | Lakewood, CO Anastasia lives in Seattle and and urban” (HCN, 2/05/18) we Ogden Kellogg | Gold Hill, OR Barbara Willcox | Grass Valley, CA works as a regional communica- misstated the year that Jen- John & Marilynn Keyser | Terrebonne, OR Susan Yates | Kirkland, WA tions manager at The Wilder- nifer Kehoe passed away; it was Stephen Knapp | Louisville, CO Thomas Yeoman & Megan MacNeill | Bend, OR ness Society, a nonprofit that 2013. We also misidentified Sharon Kolber & Gerry Burkard | Heber City, UT Hugh & Karen Zackheim | Helena, MT seeks to protect wild places. Fannie Sandoval, who does not Brian Larsen & Renae Kofford | Boulder, CO Renate & John Zinn | Santa Fe, NM Meanwhile, we’re meeting use the middle name “Mae.” Jamie Longe & Wendy Zeigler | Salt Lake City, UT new friends at our home office. —Jessica Kutz, for the staff David & Kathleen Longton | Volcano, CA Friend Scott Lucas | Evanston, WY Anonymous (9) David A. Lucia | Denver, CO In honor of Greg Hilliard | Phoenix, AZ Suzanne Marshall | Coeur d’Alene, ID In honor of Teri & Mark Vlasak | Fort Collins, CO Paul A. Mason | Oakland, CA James P. Walsh, in memory of Gilbert White William J. Matousek | Winner, SD In memory of Gerty Fitzpatrick John & Lynn Matte | Albuquerque, NM In memory of David Flanigan W.T. McCarvill | Salt Lake City, UT In memory of Bill Fraser Margaret McMillan | Little Rock, AR In memory of Louis & Teresa Rinaldo Allen McNeal | Townsend, MT In memory of Rus Weathers Sarah Michael | Sun Valley, ID In memory of Ann Zwinger Frank Miles Jr. | Cape Elizabeth, ME Christine Bartels | Palo Alto, CA Harry Mitchell | Great Falls, MT John & Naomi Bishop | Portland, OR Eldridge & Judi Moores | Davis, CA Courtney Carswell | Santa Fe, NM Bob Nordstrum | Albuquerque, NM Joseph P. Christy | Santa Cruz, CA Karen M. Ortiz | Hotchkiss, CO Lee S. Derr | Colorado Springs, CO Clayton Parr | Draper, UT Paul Drakos & Vibeke Wilberg | Santa Fe, NM Gary Pelzner | San Anselmo, CA Larry Eng | Sandpoint, ID Keith Peters | Portland, OR Sarah Stiger Ewing | Tetonia, ID Julie Phillips | Boulder, CO Andres Fernandez | Boulder, CO Marcia K. Politovich | Lafayette, CO Mike & Molly Frank | Littleton, CO Jodi Peterson checks the HCN flats for a final time. Brooke Warren Lisa Poppleton | Salt Lake City, UT John Gerstle | Boulder, CO www.hcn.org High Country News 11 Drilling Chaco

In Navajo Country, efforts to slow oil and gas development face a formidable opponent: History

n the warm, pre-monsoon night of July Chapter House just over a year later. what I call the Far Away.” The surround- 11, 2016, fire broke out among a cluster Wearing denim shorts, a tank top and ing San Juan Basin had seen successive of six newly drilled oil wells near the beaded earrings, she recalled how, in natural gas frenzies since the 1920s, but small Navajo community of Nageezi, New the years before the fire, she had gotten this part of it had mostly been spared Mexico. The residents of nearby homes involved in the effort to rein in oil and in more recent times, its oil deposits fled to the highway, where they watched gas development, joining a ragtag group thought to be tapped out. Then, around O huge curdling balls of orange flame boil of regional and local environmentalists, 2012, high oil prices and drilling and up into the vast bowl of dark sky above archaeologists and tribal officials work- fracking advances sparked new interest their corner of the Greater Chaco Region. ing to protect the Navajo communities in the Chaco region. First came the land- When someone texted Kendra Pinto, of Nageezi, Lybrook and Counselor, and men with their leases and promises of fat who lives several miles away, she raced the millennia-old cultural landscape that checks, at least for those who owned land to join the frightened spectators and radiates out from Chaco Culture National allotments and mineral rights. Then drill watched, stunned, as the conflagration Historic Park. rigs and fracking apparatus sprang up engulfed all of WPX Energy’s equipment, Like her grandmother before her, in the places where Pinto’s grandmother setting off a series of explosions that Pinto, who is in her early 30s, grew up had gathered herbs and piñon nuts. And shook the earth and sent up thick clouds here, in an area of bone-white sandstone Pinto watched sadly as a steady stream of burnt hydrocarbons. cliffs, fragrant piñon and juniper forest, of tanker trucks kicked up plumes of dust “I saw the flames … black smoke sagebrush and sensuous, deep-purple and on the once-quiet caliche roads. streaking into the sky,” Pinto told me gray badlands, a landscape that Georgia Then the fire erupted in 2016, burn- as we sat in the dappled shade of a O’Keeffe once described as “a beautiful, ing for four days and consuming 36 tanks small cottonwood outside the Counselor untouched lonely-feeling place — part of of crude oil and produced wastewater.

12 High Country News March 5, 2018 Drilling ChacoFEATURE By Jonathan Thompson

Oil rigs dot the landscape where a wild horse grazes in the Greater Chaco area. Rob Zeigler In Navajo Country, efforts to slow oil and gas development face a formidable opponent: History

No one died in the fire; it didn’t even cated than those other fights. Though the To understand what’s going on in significantly hinder production. Yet it left threats to the environment and commu- the Greater Chaco Region, you have to a lasting scar on the collective psyche of nities from energy development are argu- start with the land, 2,000 square miles the people around here, Pinto said. And it ably greater here than at Standing Rock of high desert located in the hydrocarbon injected a sense of urgency into her com- or Bears Ears, Chaco has not attracted hot spot known as the San Juan Basin. munity: “That’s when I said, ‘They can’t the same kind of attention. There are no Because of the pattern of land ownership treat us this way.’ ” movie stars or major politicians going to — a hodgepodge of federal, tribal, state, Pinto had been inspired by other jail for blocking the tanker trucks’ paths, private and Indian allotment land — it’s causes that summer, particularly the no outdoor gear corporations pouring called the Checkerboard, but it’s actu- effort led by five tribes, including the money into slick videos to stop the bat- ally more chaotic, like a patchwork quilt Navajo Nation, to save the area known talions of drill rigs from overrunning stitched together by a nearsighted drunk- as Bears Ears in southeastern Utah. And Indigenous homelands. ard. It is that way by design, the outcome she had traveled to one of the Standing Yet that hasn’t discouraged the Chaco of a century-long systematic land grab. Rock resistance camps in North Dakota, resistance. If anything, this scrappy, un- After the Pueblo people moved on where she and her comrades hoped to derfunded, sometimes shaky alliance is from the communities and structures stop a crude oil pipeline from crossing gaining momentum, forging its own way they had built and lived in for hundreds Lake Oahe. Pinto dreamed of bringing through a thicket of complicated relation- of years, the Diné, or Navajo, moved into some of that activist energy back to the ships that stretch back hundreds of years the Four Corners country, establishing a Chaco struggle, which some media outlets and that have always favored industry, 40,000-square-mile homeland bounded touted as the “next Standing Rock.” even under the most progressive admin- by four sacred peaks. At the heart of this Chaco, however, is far more compli- istrations in Washington, D.C. civilization was Huerfano Peak, within

www.hcn.org High Country News 13 A well pad and the Chaco region and just a dozen miles — captives fell ill and died and mass plots on the public domain under the infrastructure can north of Nageezi. incarceration cost the federal government 1887 General Allotment Act. Typically, be seen from the The Spanish and then Mexican colo- dearly. So in 1868, the Indian Peace Com- this law was applied to reservation land, Twin Angels site, nizers who appeared centuries later were mission sent Lt. Gen. William Tecumseh where tribal members got first dibs on a Chaco outlier, not gentle; they attacked Navajo homes Sherman to come up with a solution. parcels before the rest of the reservation in Kutz Canyon in and kidnapped thousands of Navajo and After listening to a Navajo leader named was opened up to homesteading — an northwestern New Mexico. other Native American children and held Barboncito wax eloquently about his insidious form of land grab that fractured Jonathan Thompson them as slaves. But it wasn’t until the people’s existential yearning for their tribal communities. white American miners, ranchers, settlers homeland, Sherman decided to let the Here in Chaco, however, the Navajos and soldiers arrived that any concerted Navajo people go. competed head-to-head with white home- effort to rob the Diné of their land began. The rectangular reservation laid out steaders to hold on to tiny parcels of their And when that happened, it was brutal. in the Treaty of 1868 was only about one- own homeland. And the game was rigged: In 1863 Kit Carson, then serving as eighth the size of the original homeland. If a family was away at summer herd- a field commander for the U.S. Army, led It included very little arable land and left ing camp when the Indian agent came to troops across Navajo country, slaugh- out important religious sites. Though the their winter hogan to process an allot- tering sheep and goats, hacking down treaty ordered the people to live only on ment claim, they lost the opportunity to peach orchards and torching cornfields, the reservation, Sherman’s instructions file. And when Navajos did make claims, starving the people into surrender. Army to the headmen were more ambiguous, white homesteaders managed to get them troops then forced some 9,000 survivors and perhaps muddled in translation. But nullified by alleging that they weren’t on the infamous “Long Walk” to Bosque the message the Navajo received was making the proper “improvements” on Redondo in southeastern New Mexico, a simple: You are free to go home. the land in question. barren swath of alkali dirt that was more So hundreds of families returned to As a result, untold numbers of Navajo concentration camp than reservation. the land beyond the reservation’s eastern people ended up living as “unauthor- Brig. Gen. James Carleton, who planned boundary, an area now known as the ized occupants” on public domain land Carson’s campaign, laid out the rationale Greater Chaco Region. Federal officials in the Chaco region, considered squat- for the killing and oppression in 1864: on the ground repeatedly urged the presi- ters on their own ancestral territory. “By the subjugation and colonization of dent to extend the reservation boundaries Over time, the Navajo Nation acquired the Navajo tribe, we gain for civilization to encompass this land and the holy sites. much of those lands through purchases their whole country, which … by far the But New Mexico politicians, pressured and swaps, and today the descendants best pastoral region between the two by white stockmen hungry for more land, of those earlier occupants live on tribal oceans, is said to abound in the precious successfully lobbied against them. As a (albeit not reservation) land. Those par- as well as the useful metals.” concession, the feds eventually suggested cels share boundaries with some 4,000 Bosque Redondo was a disaster that individual Navajos claim 160-acre disparate Indian allotments covering

14 High Country News March 5, 2018 Kendra Pinto, a young Navajo activist, overlooks the Bureau of Land Management lands behind her home in Twin Pines, New Mexico. Pinto wants to make companies and the BLM accountable for damage being done in the small communities of the Greater Chaco area. Rob Zeigler a total of 600,000 acres, which them- The official answer to Pinto’s question industry’s big players.) selves are scattered against a backdrop is: The Farmington Field Office of the Soon thereafter, oil companies started of federal Bureau of Land Management BLM, which sits at the top of this juris- poking around in the Gallup play, the acreage. Allotments are “private,” but are dictional layer cake. Though the agency oil-bearing shale formation in the in federal trust indefinitely, and cannot has no say over leasing of allotment or Chaco region, south of the old natural be sold, gifted or willed to anyone. When tribal lands, it does handle permitting on gas hotspots. Acknowledging that the the original allottee dies, ownership — those lands, along with leasing and per- horizontal drilling and multi-stage along with mineral rights — are divided mitting of all federal lands and minerals. hydraulic fracturing required here would up, or fractionated, between all of his or It is currently working on a new environ- be far more intensive than anything the her heirs. mental analysis of drilling in the Chaco region had seen before, the BLM in 2014 Today, jurisdiction over oil and gas region, due out next year, but right now launched a multi-year process to amend development on this fractured landscape it’s still operating under a plan that’s 15 the 2003 plan for Chaco-specific develop- is as confounding as the surface owner- years old, a fact that concerns people like ment. Around the same time, Henke, on ship patterns. Most of the tribal land is Pinto. behalf of the state oil and gas group, do- “split estate,” meaning the Navajo Nation The 2003 plan — an analysis of the nated $800,000 to the state BLM office to owns the surface, but the federal govern- impacts caused by full-field development hire more staff in order to speed permit- ment controls — and gets royalties from — was created under George W. Bush, ting. Henke then wrote to his Farmington — the oil and gas underneath. The allot- when the always-porous line between colleagues, urging them not to “run from tees receive royalties from extraction of industry and regulatory agencies in the the 2003 document nor to ignore the job minerals under their lands, but all leases New Mexico energy patch was more of a you are doing on site specific analyses.” must go through the Bureau of Indian sieve. Natural gas prices were skyrocket- It appears that the BLM heeded Affairs. Because today’s oil wells can ex- ing, and industry was eager to drill for Henke’s request. Since 2010, the field of- tend two or more miles horizontally, the coalbed methane on the mostly federal fice has leased out more than 50,000 acres oil they extract is often a combination of land north of the Checkerboard. The and issued more than 500 drilling per- allotment and federal minerals — known feds were just as eager to hand it over to mits, mostly in the Chaco area. In early as a unit or pool. That means multiple them. Steve Henke, then-BLM district 2017, the BLM leased 842 acres on four agencies are involved in permitting and manager, issued a plan that opened the parcels, despite the fact that development oversight. door to 9,942 new wells. (Henke was later could affect 314 cultural features and a “It’s a real problem, because when you caught accepting golf tickets and other mesa known as Sis Naateel, home of Na- don’t know who’s in charge it leads to a gifts from local energy companies. He left vajo deities, a sacred spring and ceremoni- total lack of accountability,” Pinto says. the BLM in 2010 and promptly became al deer-hunting grounds. This March, the “Who’s really watching the oil companies president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas BLM plans to lease 25 additional parcels and oilfield workers?” Association, the advocacy group for the covering nearly 4,500 acres around Chaco,

www.hcn.org High Country News 15 Citizen watchdog in an area where more than 90 percent of Cyclone Rig No. 32, a hulking baby-blue all the cash generated by the wells is, Daniel Tso, a former the land is already leased. beast, loomed over low hills and a double- like the oil they extract, piped far away. Navajo Nation tribal Agency officials told me that since wide home about 600 feet away. Like a Tax revenues on drilling and production council delegate, the 2003 plan specified “no geographical retro-sci-fi monster, the rig can “walk” go to Santa Fe, then get redistributed reviews a map of horizon,” and denying permits to lease- across a drill pad, and just days after Tso statewide to communities that have the Bureau of Land holders would be a “violation of property and I visited, the two dozen workers here resources to pursue them. Rig and frack- Management lands in Greater Chaco rights,” the BLM could continue to permit set a world drilling-speed record, churn- ing crews are often contractors, based in outside Torreon thousands of new wells on a case-by-case ing through 8,370 feet of shale in just 24 Wyoming, Texas or Colorado. They’ll stay Chapter House. basis before it hits the limit — with or hours. and eat in Farmington or Bloomfield, not Rob Zeigler without the new analysis. It’s a supersized version of a scene here, where there are no hotels or grocery “I don’t think the Farmington BLM is that has played out thousands of times stores, not even a laundromat. making the decisions; industry is,” said over the last century in the San Juan Ba- This WPX Energy well, like the Mike Eisenfeld of the San Juan Citizens sin, where no one is immune to the effects nearby ones that blew up in 2016, is on Alliance, who is perhaps the only profes- of oil and gas extraction. Shiny distilling Navajo allotment land, and is targeting sional environmentalist residing in Farm- columns loom over a Catholic cemetery oil in the 12,800-acre West Lybrook pool, ington. “They are being manipulated. near Bloomfield, pumpjacks grace the a mingling of federal and allotment min- And under Trump, it will be exacerbated. Farmington golf course sand traps, and erals. About 900 people share ownership They’ll try to lease everything.” the horse track sits next to a Superfund of the 35 allotments in this pool. In order site. It is all part of a grand transaction for the oil companies to secure leases, a On a hot day last August, as thun- between the communities and industry. majority of each allotment’s owners must derheads raced across the sky like Locals live with the industrialization of sign off. “When the landman or his liaison schooners, former Navajo Nation tribal their neighborhoods. In return, oil and shows up and says, ‘Sign on the line and council delegate and citizen watchdog gas companies pay royalties and taxes you’ll get a fat check,’ and when you’ve Daniel Tso, wearing boots, a big silver and provide jobs, which result in bet- got 60 to 80 percent unemployment, you belt buckle, wire-rimmed glasses and a ter infrastructure, reduced economic say, ‘Sure,’ ” Tso said. straw cowboy hat, his gray hair pulled inequality, low property taxes, and, at Terms of allotment leases are not back in a traditional bun, showed me least in Farmington, three Starbucks, two public. But if rates are on par with those how these industry-friendly practices Walmart Supercenters and a baseball on nearby federal lands, then a single played out on the ground. My little car team called the Frackers. It’s a lopsided allotment could bring in a signing bonus was clearly no match for the rain-slicked transaction, especially when the booms of $480,000 or more, which would then roads, so I hopped into his truck and we bust, but a transaction nonetheless. be divided equally between the owners. ventured into the sagebrush ocean south Down here in the Chaco Region, Because many allotments are highly of Nageezi. however, the deal feels more like outright fractionated, each owner might only get Soon, we reached one of the new theft. Oil companies still pay taxes and a few thousand dollars, though a lease wells permitted under the 2003 plan. The royalties and employ people, but nearly can yield a hefty chunk of change if the

16 High Country News March 5, 2018 owners are few. Once the wells start air during every step of extraction and ancestors of today’s Pueblo people. That producing, the allottees receive royalty processing, even from tanker trucks. was merely the center of the Chacoan checks, too. According to state records, Tso and I followed a stream of those world, however, which extended over 100 WPX Energy grossed some $30 million trucks along dusty roads in the direc- miles across the Four Corners region and from the allotment portion of the West tion of the spectacular pueblos of Chaco is represented by more than 200 outliers, Lybrook pool in 2016, and paid out an Canyon, some 15 miles distant. We saw or great houses, that share architectural average of $4,680 per allottee — some got men in grimy coveralls wrestling with gi- traits with Pueblo Bonito. No one knows a lot less, others more. While the checks ant drillbits, and orange flares burning off if this was a political empire, a religious will increase along with oil prices, they methane, nitrogen and other byproducts or cultural society, or simply a school of will also decrease over time as production from recently drilled wells. One tanker architecture. But it’s clear that outli- diminishes. stopped, the door swung open and the ers — along with thousands of smaller Even on the lower end, the payments driver hopped out of the truck, long black sites, shrines and architectural features, can make a big difference. A grandmother hair spilling out from under her hardhat. their functions still unknown — did not may, for the first time in her life, get a She looked Navajo; Tso said that locals are exist in isolation. They were part of a vast floor in her home that isn’t dirt, a roof often hired as truck drivers because they cultural tapestry woven into the natural that doesn’t leak, electric lights, a vehicle know the roads. She yanked at a valve landscape. that can navigate the rutted roads. Yet on the back of her rig, releasing a thick On a cloudless, scorching August allotment checks are as likely to be sent stream of liquid onto the side of the road. afternoon, I made my way to the Pierre’s to Albuquerque or Phoenix mailboxes We arrived at another roaring Site outlier, about 10 miles north of the as to ones in Lybrook or Nageezi. And complex of tanks and pipes, a fracking park’s boundary, by car and then on foot even if it’s the latter, the cash doesn’t job in process. A smell like that of a hot, via a maze of oil-patch roads. It was a linger locally. That’s because, unlike in dirty car engine wafted on the air as the surreal and lonely journey, my only com- Farmington or Aztec, there’s no economic workers pumped millions of gallons of panions pumpjacks bobbing up and down infrastructure to capture the wealth and nitrogen gel and water, along with tons in the sea of sage and a small herd of benefit the community as a whole. of sand and a soup of chemicals, miles horses, their manes shiny in the sun. An allottee family might live next into the earth at pressures so high that Once there, I climbed onto the “Acro- door to one living on tribal land. Both it shattered the rock, freeing the oil that polis,” an aptly named flat-topped butte will bear the burden of hosting a nearby had been locked inside there for millions upon which three of the structures in well, yet only the allottee will receive any of years. the complex sit. Unlike the buildings in benefits. “It creates a system of haves I tried to imagine what this place Chaco Canyon, these haven’t been exca- and have-nots,” said Gloria Chiquito, looked like a thousand years ago, when vated or stabilized, so at first glance they whose parents are allottees. “It’s separat- it was populated by a society of Pueblo appear to be amorphous piles of rock. ing families. … Families are fighting one farmers and hunters and thinkers and But, on closer inspection, the outlines of another.” Stories abound of grandchildren builders. And I wondered what future old walls, kivas and rooms became visible, swindling grandparents, of envy-fueled archaeologists would make of all this. like the curves of a body under a thick burglaries, violence — even murder. Will they puzzle over the practical ap- blanket. Despite the economic incentives, some plications of this byzantine assemblage of Various layers of protection cover allottees are among the most outspoken tanks? Or theorize that it was a monu- Chacoan sites. The park itself is off-limits opponents of development. Residents ment — perhaps a memorial — to an to all oil and gas development. Pierre’s worry about livestock drinking out of un- insatiable hunger for a resource that by Site and several other outliers are part of fenced waste pits, speeding trucks hitting then will be long tapped out? the Chaco Culture Archaeological Protec- animals, and the ubiquitous moon dust tion Sites Program, and all sites on fed- that rises into the air behind vehicles and When President Theodore Roosevelt eral land are shielded by the Archaeologi- settles on every nearby surface. People wielded the brand-new Antiquities Act cal Resources Protection Act and Section near wells complain about burning eyes, in 1907 to create Chaco Canyon National 106 of the National Historic Preservation Tanks containing scratchy throats, dizziness and nausea Monument, he drew the boundaries Act, which requires oil companies to oil and produced water at a WPX — symptoms associated with prolonged around what is now known as “downtown conduct a cultural inventory of all land in Energy oil well site exposure to low levels of benzene and hy- Chaco,” a handful of structures including the path of development. If the surveyors near Nageezi, drogen sulfide, which occur naturally in the 800-room Pueblo Bonito, constructed happen upon a “significant” site, the well New Mexico. oil and natural gas and can seep into the between the ninth and 12th centuries by pad or road or pipeline must be relocated, Jonathan Thompson

www.hcn.org High Country News 17 a process known as “identify and avoid.” a reminder of the power Chaco-central But such a plan is not on the table for Thanks to these laws, the major wielded over its outliers. Reed calls it “a the current administration. And it has its structures at Pierre’s Site have remained landscape monument on a large scale.” own drawbacks: It wouldn’t apply to al- unmarred by development. The ambience Similar “roads” appear all over the Chaco lotment lands, so even more development has not. Ruth Van Dyke, a professor of world. A cultural inventory could easily could be pushed onto the Navajo commu- anthropology at Binghamton University, miss segments that aren’t readily appar- nities of Lybrook, Nageezi and Counselor. cataloged the impacts of oil and gas ent, or other features that appear to be That prospect has unearthed old tensions “Most of our development on the sound- and view- natural but served a cultural function, — between advocates for the past and scapes at Pierre’s. “I found that, despite like a stone monolith that served as a those fighting for modern-day residents pueblos are still the due diligence agencies have exercised shrine. — that echo those from the original des- transmitting to protect the ground footprint of Pierre’s, “Even though agencies try to miti- ignation of the Chaco monument, when there have been significant impacts,” gate the impact, it isn’t enough, because Navajos who lived there were evicted and their migration she wrote. Twelve pumpjacks are visible you’ve literally destroyed the context had their allotments cancelled. history through from the Acropolis. When I was there, in which those things exist,” says The- But Marissa Naranjo, co-founder of the whir-pop-pop-whir of the machines resa Pasqual, former director of Acoma the Diné-Pueblo Youth Solidarity Coali- oral means. So was irritatingly audible, affirming Van Pueblo’s Historic Preservation Office, and tion, emphasizes that despite divisions, when you have Dyke’s observation: “Rather than a sacred a descendant of the Pueblo people who the fight to save ancestral Pueblo home- landscape and part of a UNESCO World occupied the Four Corners for thousands lands and the fight to protect current development Heritage Site, the Pierre’s community of years. “Most of our pueblos are still Navajo homelands are one and the same. that begins to had the feeling of an industrial park.” transmitting their migration history “It’s not just about protecting cultural The drilling threatens more than through oral means. So when you have resources,” says Naranjo, a community impact many aesthetics. Taking cues from their Native development that begins to impact many organizer from Santa Clara Pueblo, American colleagues, archaeologists are of these sites — that range in size from east of the Navajo Nation. Like Pinto, of these sites ... increasingly going beyond analyzing just the grandeur of Chaco Canyon or Mesa she’s part of what may be the most vital they are literally the material remains of cultures. Rather, Verde to very small unknown sites that branch of the Chaco movement: young, they are, as Van Dyke puts it, trying “to still remain un-surveyed and unknown Native American women. “The attack on destroying the understand an ancient sense of place … to the public — they are literally destroy- our homelands necessitates solidarity pages of the particularly sensory dimensions of place.” ing the pages of the history book of the with the Diné. They are the caretakers That’s not easy when machinery is noisily Pueblo people.” of that land. They are on the front lines history book grinding away all around you. “We need to go beyond ‘identify and every day, dealing with health and social of the Pueblo Meanwhile, “identify and avoid,” the avoid,’ ” Reed says. “But we’re not gonna impacts. … That whole landscape con- only real protection for a vast majority draw a big circle around everything and nects us.” people.” of sites, is hardly comprehensive. “That’s say, ‘No more development.’ ” It’s sim- how ancient landscapes get fragmented,” ply too late for that here. So Reed and Last August, prior to our oil-patch —Theresa Pasqual, former director of says Paul Reed, a longtime Chaco scholar. his allies, including the National Parks tour, Tso invited me to the front lines to Acoma Pueblo’s For a pipeline, the inventory follows a Conservation Association and Pueblo witness the “power base” of the move- Historic Preservation narrow swath along the right of way, and tribal leaders, asked the BLM to imple- ment firsthand. It was neither a protest Office, and a nothing else. The project is steered to ment a master leasing plan for the area, camp nor the headquarters of an environ- descendant of the avoid disturbing ancient structures, but an approach introduced by the Obama mental group, simply a regular meeting Pueblo people it could still end up bisecting a village, administration to bring more public input of the Ojo Encino Chapter. says Reed, or plowing through an ancient into what had been a “sight-unseen” Chapters were introduced to the cornfield or networks of “other super- leasing process. The proposal would put Navajo Nation in 1927, four years after subtle things going on that are part of about a half-million acres directly sur- the federal government, needing a sole understanding that landscape.” rounding the park, along with the rest of entity to sign off on oil leases on tribal Pierre’s lies along the Great North the Great North Road, off-limits to future land, instituted the centralized tribal Road, which stretches directly north of leasing. Existing leases in the protection government that endures today. But they Chaco Canyon for 30 miles or more. It zone could still be developed, but only on hark back to the pre-Long Walk days, may have been a symbolic path through the condition that quiet, darkness and when the tribe was divided into units of a time, connecting old worlds with new, or viewsheds are preserved. dozen or more families, each governed by

Material spilled UTAH COLORADO ■ Natural gas (methane/liquid) ■ Produced water ■ Crude oil/ AztecAztec condensate NEW MEXICO 64 ■ Hydrogen sulﬁde Farmington ■ Drilling mud/ Bloomfield lube oil ARIZONA ■ Other Volume spilled* 491 < 10 1,000 550 Dzil Na’oodilii 2,000 San Juan Basin (Huerfano Mountain) 3,000 > 4,000 Lybrook fossil area Nageezi Lybrook Chaco Culture *Methane is in MCF National Historic Park (thousands of cubic Counselor Great house “outliers” feet), because it’s a gas, while everything else is Great North Road in BBL (barrels). A satellite map showing oil- and gas-related spills that have DETAIL N occurred in the San Juan Basin over the past several years. hcne.ws/drilling-chaco 5 mi For an interactive version go to . Sources: New Mexico Oil Conservation Division, BLM, San Juan Citizens Alliance. 18 High Country News March 5, 2018 Data visualization by Jonathan Thompson and Brooke Warren. Pullout goes here quay sans medium 14/18 aligned toward spine —Tag

naataanii, or headmen. so we’ve got to get ready for it,” Werito Still, this is no Standing Rock. The A pumpjack as seen Today, there are 110 chapters, the said. issues here are more nuanced, the beauty from within the most local political subdivision of the Ultimately, they’d like to bring all the and intrinsic value of the San Juan Basin Pierre’s Site complex, Navajo Nation. The Ojo Encino meeting chapters in the region together to create of a harsher, more subtle sort than the a Chaco outlier. An was similar to many county meetings legally binding regulations — greater serpentine canyons of the Bears Ears unexcavated structure is perched on the I’ve attended, except for the kids selling setbacks from homes, impact fees for area. The Chaco movement is unlikely to conical hill in the meat-and-potato burritos, fry bread and fixing roads, a more equitable system of ever explode onto the national stage, but foreground. sno-cones from a window in the back. revenue sharing — on oil and gas devel- that’s just fine with its leaders. Jonathan Thompson And while the officers ran the meeting, opment. Getting Window Rock’s backing, “I was very inspired by the energy, the entire audience voted on every action however, hasn’t been easy. Fossil fuels that momentum, at Standing Rock,” says item, from a resolution to approve college have long been the Navajo Nation’s prime Naranjo. “But we also realize that this scholarships to requests by residents to source of income, and though it receives movement to protect Chaco is very, very get solar panels installed at their homes. very little revenue from oil development different. That (Chaco’s) entire landscape Like many rural Western county com- on the Checkerboard because of the land- is sacred. There are outlier sites, prayer missioners, who feel that D.C. bureau- use mishmash, many delegates are leery sites; it’s alive, it’s active. We’ve been crats ignore their concerns, members of of opposing drilling or coal mining. very careful not to initiate an occupation far-flung chapters feel invisible to the Looming threats may change their movement there because that would be tribal government in Window Rock, Ari- tune, however. The Department of extremely disrespectful to our ancestors zona. “The people out here are the same Interior’s evisceration of environmental there.” as the people in Tuba City or Kayenta,” protections that “burden domestic indus- With so many wells already in place, said Chapter President George Werito, try” could hit Chaco and the surrounding the coalition is focusing not on shutting a slim man with a ready smile in a red San Juan Basin — home to 40,000 oil and down industry, but on fighting new leases Ojo Encino Day School Braves shirt. “But gas wells and the Four Corners Methane and ensuring compliance and enforce- they (the Navajo Nation leaders) don’t Hot Spot — especially hard. On the chop- ment of regulations. Last year, Pinto tes- even know where we are. They give us no ping block are new hydraulic fracturing tified before Congress in favor of keeping help.” regulations, master leasing plans and the Obama-era methane rule that would Hoping to amplify their chapters’ the land-use designation that keeps rigs have reduced emissions, not only of the individual voices, the Ojo Encino, Torreon off much of the Great North Road. If the potent greenhouse gas, but also benzene, and Counselor chapters came together to 2016 well pad fire was the spark that volatile organic compounds and hydrogen form the Tri-Chapter alliance in 2014 at ignited the Chaco resistance, then the sulfide. It would have also yielded more the height of the oil boom. Drilling has Trump administration’s drive to achieve royalties for the federal government and hit Counselor hard, and Torreon and Ojo “energy dominance” is like gasoline, fur- the allottees. The Senate agreed to keep Encino may be next. “It’s coming this way, ther enflaming the broad-based effort. the rule in place, but Interior Secretary

www.hcn.org High Country News 19 Ryan Zinke is now trying to scrap it. Late last year, the National Congress of American Indians joined the All Pueblo Council of Governors, the entire New Mex- ico Democratic congressional delegation, and even Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye in calling for a moratorium on all new leases in the Chaco region, at least until the new environmental analysis is complete. And in January, a coalition of environmental groups filed a formal protest against the March lease sale, joining more than 400 others in speaking out against it, including Acoma Pueblo, the Tri-Chapter alliance and the Nageezi Chapter. The chapters have been one of the most significant, and unique, components of the movement. “This has always been a group effort,” Tso said, as he stood up Stars shine over a campground at the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, an International before the Ojo Encino audience and, Dark Sky Park threatened by methane flaring at oil and gas facilities.Rob Zeigler in Navajo and English, summarized Jonathan Thompson is resolutions supporting air-quality and less water wells on the southern portion places,” Pasquale says. “And while they a contributing editor health-impact monitoring in the oil patch. of the Checkerboard. “We don’t want that may seem small and incremental, they at High Country News. Pinto and others have been sampling air to be our story,” he said. Both resolutions do lead to larger movements to protect He is the author of near facilities, and a coalition of affected passed resoundingly. these places that are important not just the new book, River of chapters launched a Hozhoogo Na’adah After the meeting adjourned, as I to the Pueblo people, but all of the people, Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, and Greed assessment — a Diné-centered research picked at the crumbs of alkaan — a sweet all of the public, because it belongs to the Behind the Gold King model — to gain a more holistic under- and smoky corn and flour cake that some- greater story of all of us, of all of the hu- Mine Disaster. standing of how residents are affected by one had brought — I considered what I man race.”  @jonnypeace oil and gas development. had just witnessed. This is no explosive As I turned to leave, I caught a Tso talked about the Church Rock movement, scoring dramatic, if tempo- glimpse of a poster hanging on the wall. This coverage is supported by spill of 1979, about 80 miles west of rary, victories. It’s a slow and rumbling It portrayed a young Navajo woman contributors to the here, where a uranium mill tailings dam and lasting upswelling of protest truly wearing a squash-blossom necklace and High Country News busted, sending 1,100 tons of radioactive rooted in the land, led by the people who a gas mask: “Don’t Just Walk In Beauty,” Enterprise Journalism tailings and toxic effluent into the Rio call this place home. “There is a constant the bold lettering said. “Protect It! Hózhó Fund. Puerco of the West, contaminating count- effort and movement to protect those (Beauty) Starts With You.”

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Mendenhall Loop by James Baker

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Notice to our advertisers: You can place education classified ads with our online classified system. Visit hcn.org/classifieds. March 2 Earn a master’s of education with is the deadline to place your print ad in the North Cascades Institute and Huxley March 19 issue. Call 800-311-5852, or e-mail College of the Environment at Western [email protected] for help or information. Washington University. We offer a unique professional residency program designed to prepare a cohort of students in all We accept advertising Advertising Policy: aspects of environmental education and because it helps pay the costs of publishing nonprofit administration while living amid a high-quality, full-color magazine, where the towering peaks of the North Cascades. topics are well-researched and reported in Now accepting applications for 2018! Visit an in-depth manner. The percentage of the ncascades.org/study to learn more. magazine’s income that is derived from advertising is modest, and the number of advertising pages will not exceed one-third employment of our printed pages annually. Artemis Program Manager – The National Wildlife Federation’s new sportswomen’s business opportunities initiative, Artemis, is key to the conservation movement’s future and will play a defining Conservationist? Irrigable land? Stellar seed-saving NGO is available to serious role in NWF’s public lands and sporting partner. Package must include financial conservation portfolios. The Artemis Program support. Details: http://seeds.ojaidigital.net. Manager will work with NWF sporting and public lands staff to build a sportswomen’s movement, and secure protection and Advertising is a great way to support enhancement of America’s public lands, High Country News and get your word waters and wildlife. The employee will build out – Consider a classified ad in HCN when strategic campaigns, expand our sporting you have a conservation or green technolo- capacity and maximize resources. To learn gy job to fill, a conference or special event more about this role and see a complete job coming up, a house to sell, unique home description with qualifications, please visit and garden products, professional services our website at www.nwf.org. to promote, travel opportunities or any other information you would like to get out to Wildlife Conservation Society seeks a like-minded people. Visit http://classifieds. Regional Director, Rocky Mountain West hcn.org or call 800-311-5852. Region — The position will be based in Fort Collins, Colo., or Bozeman, Mont. Apply today at https://tinyurl.com/ycm249rb .

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www.hcn.org High Country News 21 MARKETPLACE

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22 High Country News March 5, 2018 Beavers continued from page 9 the Endangered Species Act to consult willingness to consult in Oregon hints with the Fisheries Service to ensure that that the agency is capable of viewing bea- communities were growing, too. its beaver-killing isn’t jeopardizing listed vers as boons as well as pests. And fur- Like people, beavers are inventive salmon. On Dec. 27, the gambit cleared its ther legal action seems likely: “We’re talk- tool-users. They favor valley bottoms and first hurdle. Wildlife Services notified the ing to all of our partners about beavers,” relentlessly modify their environments. center that it had agreed to consult — and says Andrew Hawley, staff attorney at the They’re notorious for clogging culverts, that it would let beavers live while the re- Western Environmental Law Center, “and felling timber, and, as Susan Sherosick view progressed. The agency, wrote David what we can be doing to help change how knows too well, flooding yards. Those Williams, its Oregon director, “has ceased they’re managed throughout the West.” conflicts are particularly acute along the all aquatic mammal damage management beaver-rich streams that vein western Or- activities in Oregon related to damage he Beaver State has not been kind to egon. According to records acquired by the caused by beaver, river otter, muskrat, T its eponymous rodents. Oregon, in defi- Center for Biological Diversity, between and mink out of an abundance of caution.” ance of biology, classifies these herbivores 2010 and 2016, Wildlife Services killed Now comes a trek through the bureau- as predators, a designation that allows 282 beavers in Coos County, 198 in Doug- cratic maze. Wildlife Services consented landowners to shoot them on sight. Some las County, and 292 in Lincoln County. to submit a biological assessment to the advocates worry that, if Wildlife Services’ Beavers share Oregon’s creeks with National Marine Fisheries Service by Feb. ability to control beavers is curtailed, the nearly a dozen threatened and endangered 28. If both agencies agree that killing bea- agency’s “cooperators” — the counties and runs of chinook, chum, sockeye and coho vers is likely to harm protected fish, they’ll other land managers with whom it con- salmon, as well as other protected fish, undergo a formal consultation that could tracts — will simply hire private trappers, including steelhead, bull trout and War- end with a biological opinion, a document increasing undocumented killings. Beaver ner suckers. A growing body of evidence specifying measures for reducing damage removal could continue unabated, but suggests that by creating ponds, storing to salmon habitat. In neighboring Wash- without the government tracking kills: a water, and converting straight streams ington, where Wildlife Services did con- data-deficient free-for-all. Adkins, though, is more optimistic. Be- cause it’s a federal agency, she points out, Wildlife Services offers services to cooperators at prices that private trappers can’t match. By limiting federally subsidized trapping on salmon streams, conservationists hope to spur land managers to seek less deadly solutions. “Lethal management will probably never be taken off the books,” says Leonard Houston, a Douglas County resident who has live-trapped and relocated dozens of beavers under the auspices of the South Umpqua Rural Community Partnership, “but our hope is that this will make it a last option.” For one beaver colony, the case has Jakob Shockey of already made a difference. After Susan Beaver State Wildlife Solutions installs a Sherosick’s trapping requests went un- pond leveler in Little answered, she contacted Houston, whose Canyon Creek, on name she’d seen in the newspaper. One Susan Sherosick’s Tuesday in January, Houston and Jakob property outside Shockey, the founder of a company called Sutherlin, Oregon. Beaver State Wildlife Solutions, visited Courtesy of Beaver State Wildlife Solutions Sherosick’s land to install a flow device, a pipe-and-fence contraption designed to lower beaver ponds, thereby sparing both into multi-threaded ones, beavers expand sult with the Fisheries Service, the agency property and the animals’ lives. Shockey’s shelter for young fish and keep creeks committed to restrictions on beaver killing services have been solicited elsewhere in well-hydrated. One 1992 study found that — agreeing, for instance, to concentrate its Oregon by the National Marine Fisheries two-thirds of Oregon’s coastal coho over- trapping on agricultural drainage chan- Service, the Department of Fish and Wild- wintered in beaver ponds and slackwaters. nels rather than salmon streams. “We’re life, and myriad watershed councils and In its coho recovery plan, the National Ma- hoping that the outcome of the consulta- transportation departments. “There are rine Fisheries Service recommends “en- tion is that there’s no more trapping of lots of people interested in seeing beavers couraging the formation of beaver dams.” beaver in critical occupied salmonid habi- persist on the landscape,” he says. “There is little dispute that beavers tat,” says Collette Adkins, a senior attor- Sherosick, who appreciates her beavers improve streams,” says Kent Woodruff, ney at the Center for Biological Diversity. despite the headaches, is one of them. And a former U.S. Forest Service biologist in Whatever happens, the case’s sym- the price was right: Shockey’s flow device, Washington who spearheaded a reloca- bolic significance is hard to miss. Around funded by the Rural Community Partner- tion program called the Methow Beaver the West, a burgeoning coalition of “Bea- ship, didn’t cost her a penny. When I spoke Project. “The scientific literature is solid ver Believers” is relocating, conserving, or with her several days later, she seemed on the multiple benefits beavers provide.” imitating beavers to improve sage grouse cautiously optimistic about her ability to That literature underpins the envi- habitat, build wetlands for swans, store cohabitate with her buck-toothed neigh- ronmental groups’ case against Wildlife groundwater, boost cattle forage and bors. “The water’s down far enough now Services. The Center for Biological Diver- repair eroded streams. Although Wild- that it’s not hurting anything,” she said. sity and its allies charged that the agency life Services has been a powerful head- “I’m waiting to see how it works out. It’s has a responsibility under Section 7 of wind in the face of that momentum, its only been a week.”

www.hcn.org High Country News 23 PERSPECTIVE

Boulders surround a mud-filled property after a mudslide swept through Montecito, California, in January. Kyle Grillo/Reuters Disasters and their disparities Calamity brings us together, but recovery shows our differences

It takes two hours to drive along the According to the U.S. Geological Sur- mean, not just to your survival, but to coast from Los Angeles to Montecito, vey, landslides happen in rich and poor your overall well-being?” California. On a sunny day (of which neighborhoods alike, killing up to 50 Even before the fires and landslides, there are, on average, 284 a year, accord- people a year across the country. That’s Montecito was in the midst of a slow- ing to the National Climatic Data Cen- because of the popularity of hilltop hous- moving climate dilemma. It’s built on ter), the Pacific Ocean glistens to your es in the U.S. In much of the developing land without much access to water. left as you head north, away from the world, the urban poor are forced to live Every semester, Maldonado invites lo- city’s hubbub, past fields and picturesque in overcrowded and eroded hilltops in cal water resource engineers to explain beach towns until you reach the secluded cities like my native Caracas, Venezuela. how the struggle over natural resources hills of eastern Santa Barbara County. But in the American West, hills offer the affects this otherwise wealthy enclave. Letter From If you can afford it, the unincorporat- best views and most coveted real estate. Often, guest speakers mention Oprah California ed community of Montecito offers many They also often host the biggest Winfrey’s 40-acre estate, the second Ruxandra Guidi things that Los Angeles doesn’t: open homes, though the risks of hilltop man- biggest water user in Santa Barbara space, tree cover, seclusion. Its low crime sions are widely known. In fact, follow- County, with an annual water bill of up rate and well-maintained infrastructure ing the Thomas wildfire last December, to $125,000. go hand-in-hand with its status as one of the USGS warned of potential landslides Still, their money helps the rich the country’s most expensive zip codes. in Montecito’s alluvial fans, places where survive their troubles. They can usually Almost three-fourths of Montecito’s sediment fans out from mountaintops rebuild or find medical help as needed. majority-white population lives in homes towards the valleys. Maldonado points out that the recent they own. Yet development on alluvial fans fires and landslides affected a much wid- Montecito seems like an unlikely site remains widespread in Southern Califor- er range and diversity of people: Mem- for a violent disaster. But last Decem- nia. For example, in the San Bernardino bers of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash ber’s Thomas wildfire destroyed nearly Valley, a four-hour drive east of Mon- Mission Indians, who were displaced by 300,000 acres nearby, forcing 100,000 tecito, more than 500,000 new housing the fires, had to fight the flames to pre- people to evacuate. Heavy rains followed development projects were built atop serve their cultural sites. And roughly within weeks, turning the scenic hills alluvial fans between 2000 and 2006. In a third of those killed in the landslides into a post-apocalyptic landscape. A wall 2003, a local mudslide killed 16 people. came from immigrant families employed of mud and debris thundered down, kill- “Every time there is a major flood event, in local service jobs. The domestic labor- ing at least 21 people and destroying an we have task forces and we do studies,” ers, teachers and small business owners estimated 75 homes. Susan Lien Longville, chairwoman of the who cater to the wealthy community The news was shocking. We’re not San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water of 9,000 cannot escape the fallout from used to seeing the well-to-do as victims District, told E&E News in January. But these twin tragedies. of natural catastrophes, as if they and the findings are ignored. The recovery from this natural their neighborhoods should be exempt “The Montecito case shows us that disaster will be much harder for the less- by virtue of their economic power — as we — all of us, regardless of class or race visible, low-income residents of Monte- if life inside a well-constructed, gated — are at some level of risk,” Julie Maldo- cito. They have fewer options than their compound guarantees security. But in nado, who teaches a class called “Risks, wealthier counterparts do. WEB EXTRA this era of manmade climate change — Vulnerability, Resilience, Disasters” “We tend to focus on the extremes, Read more from as California’s rapid development collides at the University of California Santa but the vast majority of people live on Ruxandra Guidi — including a Spanish with drought, fires, torrential rains — Barbara’s Department of Environmental that margin where they pay their rent version of this that illusion no longer holds. These disas- Studies, told me. “The impacts of climate this month, and all it takes is one bad in- story — and all our ters affect everyone eventually. Yet it’s change do not discriminate in the sense cident to not be able to pay it the next,” commentators at when we try to recover from them that of whether they affect you or not, but to says Maldonado. “That’s how disasters www.hcn.org our class differences become starkest. what extent? And what do the impacts often affect people.”

24 High Country News March 5, 2018 BOOKS

the hatchling and raised it to adulthood, a Frankenhuyzen’s Adopted by an Owl, and The genius process Furtwangler captured in whimsi- the late Oregon author Chris Chester’s cal black-and-white photos. With a rehab- magnificent Providence of a Sparrow. Like ber’s necessary wit, she recounts stories of Chester, Haupt shows how, by studying a and the pest the bird nestling in her cleavage, pooping creature long regarded as a nuisance, we in her hair, vanishing and being found at may cultivate a gracious appreciation for last, having flown into the refrigerator. the ordinary and the inevitable. As a child in Los Angeles, I watched The third story in the book belongs to Her portrayal of Carmen returns to European starlings bathe in gutter pud- this starling. Carmen, as Haupt calls her, me something that’s been missing for dles, admiring their gleaming feathers represents a smart and resourceful spe- decades: a receptive respect for the wild and quick bright eyes. Field guides and cies. While the author acknowledges that creatures that were available in my birdwatchers say starlings perch on the starlings can become undeniable pests, cement and asphalt childhood. Who are lowest rung of the ornithological ladder, her charming stories of this particular any of us to say, really, that a California thanks to their tendency to invade both bird remind us that perhaps — since the condor glimpsed on a backpacking trip or cities and fragile habitats, pushing out species isn’t going away any time soon — a resplendent quetzal spotted on a Costa native birds and decimating farmers’ we might as well learn to live in harmony Rican tour has more innate worth than a crops. But I didn’t know that then. In with it. “I do detest the presence of the bird possessed of over 30 song types, one ignorance, I marveled. species in North America,” she writes. resourceful enough to exist on dumpster Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a “But this bird on my shoulder? Mischie- crumbs and bathe in urban gutters? starling, purchased for a few coins in a vous, clever, disorderly, pestering, spar- “(Carmen) became the teacher, the guide, Mozart’s Starling Viennese pet shop; he kept it as a com- kling, sleepy? Yes, I confess, I couldn’t be and I became an unwitting student — or Lyanda Lynn Haupt panion and — possibly — a muse. The more fond of her.” more accurately, a pilgrim, a wondering 277 pages, unlikely relationship between musical Haupt’s book is the latest addition to journeyer who had no idea what was to hardcover: $27. genius and avian pariah has been the an unusual subgenre. Over the past quar- come,” Haupt writes. “It led me to the un- Little, Brown, 2017. subject of essays, public radio features, ter century, authors have penned shelves derstanding that there is more possibility and now Mozart’s Starling, a work of lit- full of books about sharing their home in our relationships with animals — with erary nonfiction by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. with a wild bird: Bernd Heinrich’s One all the creatures of the earth, not just the A Seattle-based naturalist and the au- Man’s Owl, Martin Windrow’s The Owl traditionally beautiful or endangered, or thor of Crow Planet and Urban Bestiary, Who Liked Sitting on Caesar, Helen Mac- loved — than I had ever imagined.” Haupt tells three stories in her newest donald’s H is for Hawk, Robbyn Smith van By Melissa Hart book — a trio of deftly interwoven tales that point toward a new way of seeing Carmen, the pet species we long ago learned to revile. starling of author As in her previous works of nonfiction, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Crow Planet and The Urban Bestiary, takes a bath. Haupt asks us — gently and with conta- T om Furtwangler/ gious delight — to reconsider the animals Courtesy of the author we disparage. Listen to her, and even the most pedestrian walkways sing out with possibility. Starlings — like house spar- rows and racoons and nutria — are here to stay despite our best efforts to eradicate them. These familiar birds are a gateway creature, if you will, allowing almost anyone anywhere to become acquainted with and attuned to a species other than ours. Haupt begins with Mozart, describing how the composer discovered the bird, unaccountably whistling a motif from a piano concerto of his that had not yet been publicly performed. Haupt delves into this mystery and others, armed with history and science. She journeys to Vi- enna and the Mozarthaus, where the composer and his family lived between 1784 and 1787, to see for herself the rooms made sweeter by the presence of a species with an extraordinary capacity for song. European starlings, Haupt explains, are natural mimics. “It is a surprise to most contemporary Americans that starlings can talk, that they are gifted mimics of environmental sounds, other birds, music, and the human voice,” she writes. And they’ve managed to spread across North America and around the globe. The second story in the book is her own — the entertaining tale of how Haupt, a former wildlife rehabilitator, and her husband, Tom Furtwangler, snatched a baby starling from a nest in a Seattle park before city exterminators arrived. They nurtured

www.hcn.org High Country News 25 Stranger than Paradise Cliven Bundy takes a victory lap

E ssay By Paradise, Montana — There are seven nasium on this long winter’s night, we get The town has seen better days: The Pair- speakers, songs, and prayers, another song, pronouncements on history, individual A-Dice Bar is gone, there is no grocery Hal Herring and then more prayers. Roxanne Ryan sovereignty, man’s dominion over nature, store, and in the winter’s gray chill, the of the nearby town of Plains, Montana, a constitutional law and the Bible. Ryan’s 180 or so inhabitants are nowhere to be Photographs tall and unadorned woman, long gray hair face is jailhouse-pale, his mouth and right seen. This venerable old schoolhouse, By Tony Bynum framing a face of quiet stoicism, intro- eye distorted from a childhood injury. He perched on a hill above the ramshackle duces each speaker. The sadness in her is not a large or imposing man, nor a com- streets, closed in 2013, though a group voice, her heavy air of tribulation, are real. pelling speaker, but the audience seems of Sanders County residents was able to Roxanne’s son, Jake, one of the occupiers transfixed: His countenance, in the strong preserve the historic building for commu- of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge lights, beneath his oversized white sum- nity events such as this one, the “Free- in 2016, is in Oregon, facing sentencing mer Stetson, is that of a broken angel. “I dom and Property Rally.” for his role in the refuge takeover. Her believe that God intended for land to be in The railroad still runs through Para- younger son, Jubal, is a featured singer the hands of individuals, and not govern- dise, but, as in a hundred desolate songs tonight, belting out a rousing rendition of ments,” he says, and the crowd cheers and poems, the train has not stopped the seldom-heard third verse of The Star- with gusto. “Is Montana a state? I’m not here in decades. For the 25 or so years I Spangled Banner (“No refuge could save sure. Does it own 100 percent of its land have known the town, it has been a place the hireling and slave / From the terror of and resources?” The crowd responds with where people from far away come to hide flight or the gloom of the grave”), and the a vigorous “No!” Ryan continues, “We out, to get off the grid (or try to), to put Ryan family will, as the hours wear on and should change our name, then, to the wreckage or bad choices or grief in the energy in the big room begins to flag, sing Imperial Provinces of America!” rearview. It collects the lame and the halt, a shortened but poignant version of Marty At first glance, Paradise, Montana, the aggrieved, like the grooves of a wash Robbins’ Ballad of the Alamo. just a few miles to the west of the Salish- plant collect the densest gravels. People From Ryan Bundy, who has come with Kootenai Indian Reservation, seems an tend to seek out Paradise, and Sanders his father, Cliven, to this once-proud gym- odd place for such a momentous event. County, for the isolation and the sense

26 High Country News March 5, 2018 “We should change our name, then, to the Imperial Provinces of America!” —Ryan Bundy, speaking at the Freedom and Property Rally in Paradise, Montana that this is a last holdout of the Old West, horse, Hellboy, in the snow at Malheur, the carved out of the former plats of timber big American flag unfurling behind him. companies up any of the side drainages. A banner featuring the late Finicum’s bar- The stories have been the same for de- and-V brand is stapled above an electric cades now: of unexploited gold and silver blue flag that just says “Liberty.” deposits, of a timber industry shut down A little boy in a tricorn hat toys by “eco-Nazis” in league with a tyrannical with a real hatchet. His adult, tricorned government that covets minerals, range, counterpart, verbose, pony-tailed and timber and even private-land holdings, for wearing round spectacles, sports a once- some nefarious globalist plan. colorful homemade Colonial soldier suit Perhaps, then, the Freedom and Prop- and purple leggings, both a bit dingy now. erty Rally belongs here. A shaven-headed man who looks to be in Montana state Sen. Jennifer Fielder his 60s wears a T-shirt that proclaims his — a Republican who also leads the captaincy in the “U.S. Militia, Northern American Lands Council, which advo- Command, 79th Battalion, Shoshone, cates the transfer of federal lands to the Idaho.” The predominant age of the crowd states — shares headliner status here is over 50, and most well beyond that, with the grand old man himself, Cliven but there is a smattering of families with Bundy, who has driven 15 hours from small children, dressed plainly, mem- his home in Bunkerville, Nevada, to bers of a number of religious sects that meet with his followers and celebrate his seem to be everywhere now around rural freedom after soundly beating federal Montana. There is a contingent of 15 or prosecutors who sought to imprison him so members of the Missoula-based group and two sons for their actions during the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, most Bunkerville standoff and the Malheur of them young, here to provide a dissent- takeover. Tonight belongs to the Bundys, ing view of the Bundys’ expressed desire to their triumph, and to all the seething to rid Americans of their public lands. (I resentments that swirl around them like host a podcast for the group, but at this a band of cavorting imps. rally I represented myself only.) But we must wait for the prize. When Cliven Bundy finally steps to We listen to the rambling story of a the microphone, the crowd cheers, but not white-bearded local man named Billy for long. The elder Bundy has served, he Hill, whose long history of fighting with reminds us, 700 days in jail, but he is not the U.S. Forest Service and other federal here to celebrate his freedom, nor to revel agencies is also available in printed form, in the adoration of the people of Paradise. for free, on the table next to the petitions He is here to admonish, even to scold. He and the “Jury Nullification” T-shirts. tells the audience they are Montanans, Among Hill’s grievances is a dispute over citizens of a sovereign state, and that open range, or grazing cattle without they have failed to live up to that fact. He fees. Such a stance ought to discredit refers to himself in the third person. a speaker in a room partly filled with “Who is Cliven mad at?” he asks. cattlemen who must pay land taxes and Yells from the crowd: “Obama!” “Hill- grazing fees — but in one of the myster- ary Clinton!” “The federal government, ies of Paradise, tonight it does not. ’cause they violated your rights!” We hear from Shawna Cox, the “No,” he says. “Cliven doesn’t recog- Constitutional Sheriffs’ and county su- Cliven Bundy takes middle-aged blond-haired matriarch who nize their authority at all. I don’t have a premacy movements, which claim county the stage, facing was in the truck driven by LaVoy Fini- contract with the federal government. I government as the supreme law over the page, at the old cum when he was shot and killed by law don’t graze their lands. This talk about federal government. Cliven is articulate, schoolhouse in enforcement officers during the Malheur transferring lands back to the states, I a convincing speaker, but the legalities Paradise, Montana, standoff. Cox is outraged that an armed say, ‘Good heavens! We already have a and the natural rights to which he refers for the Freedom and Property occupation of a wildlife refuge by men Constitution!’ ” — to which he has committed his life, lib- Rally. Top, Ryan kitted out for war inspired an armed It is late. We’ve been here for hours. erty and sons — seem nebulous at best. Bundy waves a response from law enforcement. Much The panel of speakers looks weary behind He winds up his talk with a return to his Constitution as of the crowd seems to share her outrage; Cliven. Ryan, as if lulled by his father’s religious faith, the deep love of God and he speaks. Above, in fact, outrage is the primary currency voice, closes his eyes and seems to doze, family that he says brought him through Montana state here, Finicum the fallen martyr around his big Stetson cocked forward a bit. his months in jail. He seems — he is — Sen. Jennifer which it coalesces. “We already talked about how there sincere. “We need to love each other. My Fielder approaches The security is tight — large, mostly is no place in the Constitution where it grandmother used to say, ‘We could all do Cliven Bundy for fit young men with ear pieces, bundled in says a government can own land,” Cliven a little better.’ Thank you.” his autograph jackets despite the warmth of the gym, continues. “A neighbor told me, ‘Never Even now, the rally is not over. There on a newspaper featuring an article most of them righteously and luxuriously call it your lease, or allotment. Call it is a benediction, more talk, more fellow- about the Bundy bearded as befits a latter-day biblical Son your ranch. You are the one who has the ship. And why not? Where is there to mistrial. of Thunder. Pageantry is important. In rights.’ All that red on the map, it all has go, with the ice-clotted Clark Fork River addition to the ubiquitous, special-edition pre-emptive rights, it has all been grazed right outside, the dark settlement quiet copies of the Constitution, worn in the by sheep or cattle, it has all been disposed under the looming darker mountains? In Hal Herring covers front pocket like membership badges, of by the federal government, all the all this tyrannized, fallen nation, what environment, guns, there are posters and photos and flags. rights have been adjudicated.” better place than here, in the comfortable conservation and One poster shows Duane Ehmer riding his His talk goes on, to include the company of the true believers? public-lands issues.

www.hcn.org High Country News 27 U.S. $5 | Canada $6

HEARD AROUND THE WEST | BY Betsy Marston

THE WEST school classrooms across the state and in the After a “golden era” under President Barack lobbies of state government buildings. The bill Obama, the country’s gun sales have plum- has no funding scheme; instead, the governor meted, reports The Guardian. The culprit is the will “take donations,” sponsor Cheri Steinmetz, gun-friendly presidency of Donald Trump, and R-Lingle, told the Casper Star-Tribune. The the most recent casualty is Remington, which measure awaits the full Legislature’s approval. just applied for bankruptcy protection as it offloads $700 million in debt and restructures THE WEST the company. Remington is one of the most Although Bob Marley, the famous reggae singer, famous names in weaponry, supplying arms to died in 1981, his estate made $20 million last soldiers in the Civil War, both world wars and year, putting him at No. 5 on Forbes’ list of top- to generations of gun enthusiasts. And Rem- earning deceased celebrities. (Dead celebrities ington is not alone: Two months ago, American ranking ahead of him include Michael Jackson Outdoor Brands, the owner of Smith & Wesson, and Elvis Presley, while Marilyn Monroe and said that its profits had fallen 90 percent over John Lennon come in right behind.) Now, a last year, and Storm Ruger, the country’s largest WASHIN GTon Mountainears. Sarah Gilman Seattle equity firm, Privateer Holdings, has firearm maker, announced that its quarterly big plans to make Marley the “Marlboro Man revenues were down 35 percent. The “Trump of marijuana,” reports the Financial Times. slump” reveals just how much gun sales have webcam, and thousands of people commented Besides marketing “heirloom Jamaican cannabis been politicized, said Robert Spitzer, a professor about the new family on the Institute for strains,” Privateer’s subsidiary, Marley Natural, at the State University of New York at Cortland. Wildlife Studies’ website. The fluffy little white plans to sell marijuana-infused skim creams During the Obama years, people bought guns to chicks will fatten up in the nest for the next two and lip balms. make a statement; these days, he said, gun sales to three months, reports The Associated Press. In other pot news, for the first time in Aspen, reflect a long-term trend of declining gun owner- A less happy event occurred in Utah’s Colorado, legal marijuana sales of $11.3 million ship. Fewer people hunt, he pointed out, women Wasatch County when the state’s Division of last year topped liquor store sales of $10.5 mil- and minorities aren’t that thrilled about owning Wildlife Resources tried to capture a cow elk lion, reports the Aspen Times. The town has six dangerous weapons, and neither are young with a net and haul it off by helicopter. Sudden- pot shops and five liquor stores. people. So who buys guns? The answer is people ly, reports the Salt Lake Tribune, the elk jumped And in a pairing as natural as milk and who already own arsenals: “Just 3 percent of the up and hit the helicopter’s tail rotor, almost cookies, as The Cannabist put it, “The Girl population owns an average of 17 guns each,” severing it. “Not something you see everyday, Scouts of Colorado have decided it’s now cool The Guardian reported, “with an estimated 7.7 when an elk brings down a chopper,” said a crew to peddle their baked goods outside marijuana million super-owners in possession of between member. No people were hurt, though the elk dispensaries: Munchies, meet Thin Mints, eight and 140 guns apiece.” Gun sales might did not survive. Tagalongs and Samoas.” With safety as their pick up again in the wake of the latest shooting. Meanwhile, chances of seeing an all-white top concern, troop leaders this year are free to And, as Spitzer notes, if Democrats do well in raccoon are said to be one in 750,000. But in choose just about any location likely to help the mid-term election, “the NRA (National Rifle western Colorado, south of Durango, a family budding entrepreneurs sell lots of boxes of cook- Association) will no doubt use it as an opportu- found a rare, 35-pound albino animal. Unfor- ies. Besides pot shops, that now includes tattoo nity to issue dire warnings about gun rights.” tunately, reports the Durango Herald, it was parlors, bars, liquor stores and casinos. already dead. THE WEST In happy wildlife news, a pair of bald eagles near WEB EXTRA For more from Heard around the West, see Big Bear Lake in Southern California’s San WYOMING hcn.org. Bernardino National Forest hatched two baby Faced with an $850 million shortfall in the state chicks in February after a 35-day incubation budget and only four weeks to come up a solu- Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write [email protected] or tag period, during which the big birds took turns tion, the Wyoming House got one bill moving photos #heardaroundthewest on Instagram. fluffing up and perching on the eggs to keep ahead by a vote of 60-16. It won’t help the bud- them warm. “The whole world was watching,” re- get, though; rather, it would require the motto ports ABC News, thanks to an online streaming “In God We Trust” to be displayed in all public-

High Guns and gentrification are as Western Country as open space and agriculture. News “ For people who care about the West. All are elements of our culture and points High Country News covers the important issues and stories that are unique to the American West with a of our conversations as we evolve and magazine, a weekly column service, books and a website, hcn.org. For editorial comments or questions, write redefine ourselves as who we are. High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or [email protected], or call 970-527-4898. Maddy Butcher, in her essay, “A Western town says ‘no’ to guns in schools,” from Writers on the Range,” hcn.org/wotr 28 High Country News March 5, 2018