Privatization

  • Key US Senate subcommitee holds hearings on CIEDRA and Owyhee Initiative today

    Ralph Maughan

    Idaho’s Senior US Senator Larry Craig chairs the Senate subcommitte that has hearings on CIEDRA and the Owyhee Initiative today. CIEDRA has already passed the House of Representatives where notorious Richard Pombo chairs the committee. His pound of flesh was insistence that the very beneficial buyout of East Fork of the Salmon River ranchers be…

  • Two Idaho "wilderness" bills before the U.S. Senate this week.

    Ralph Maughan

    I have written a lot about CIEDRA (Wilderness, with side payments in the Boulder and White Cloud Mountains). I have written less about the Owyhee Initiative (Wilderness, with side payments in a huge region of arid, unpopulated steppe and canyon country in SW Idaho). CIEDRA has already passed the House. This is the first legislative…

  • Stanley withdraws support for CIEDRA. City takes neutral position, but still wants land transfers

    Ralph Maughan

    This is the followup to an earlier story below. Steven Benson of the Idaho Mountain Express has written a long story about the emergency Sunday meeting in Stanley last Sunday that lasted for hours. Read article. Sept. 21. Now the Challis Messinger has its article on the meeting. It’s by Anna Means. Read article. The…

  • CIEDRA drama escalating in Stanley. Emergency meeting set for Sunday

    Ralph Maughan

    For those who haven’t followed it CIEDRA is “Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act,” which some call the “Wilderness Bill” for the White Cloud Mountains, but it involves a lot more. It is sponsored by Idaho Republican US Representative Mike Simpson who crafted a bill that barely convinced diverse interests to support what might…

  • Owyhee Initiative–vast area in SW Idaho–sparks controversy

    Ralph Maughan

    The Owyhee country, a huge area in SW Idaho that also includes country in northern Nevada and SE Oregon, is little known by most Americans, or even Idahoans who do not live in Idaho’s Treasure Valley (Boise-Nampa-Caldwell). It is lonely country with vast tablelands, mountains, and deep canyons cut in basalt, said to be the…

  • Utah legislation endangers lands we hold dear.

    Ralph Maughan

    The Washington County [Utah] Growth and Conservation Act would designate over 200,000 acres of very scenic public lands as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, but the guts of the act is the part that sells 25,000 acres of US public land near booming St. George, Utah to developers. The money would finance a…

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‎”At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

Edward Abbey

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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