Natural Gas Company Doing the Right Thing

The Catskills, habitat for some of the best drinking water in the country (that doesn't have to be filtered) is again protected. A company that owned the natural gas rights underneath the New York City watershed has decided not to drill. It's the right thing to do.

Nice to see a company in America make good choices.

The New Rural West

For almost two decades, there was much bally-hooing among students of the West, that there were signs of a New West. The New West's economies were more urban based, less natural resource dependent. Our focus on the natural world would be amenity rather than resource driven. Gateway communities would spring up near the magnificent sights, such as Yellowstone, Yosemite, Canyonlands and Zion. For the longest time, eco-tourism was the buzzword. The much extended version of eco-tourism were all encompassing resort developments. Golf courses, spas, hiking trails, wildlife viewing, fly fishing. Everything was environmentally sensitive and the sun always shined. Names like Suncadia, Sun River, Tamarack where lots were sold, dreams were made.

And now, there is the New New West. Or perhaps a reversion to parts of the West that are familiar to old Westerns, the ghost towns. Ghost towns are the remnants of boom and busts. Mining towns such as Sunshine, Wallace,Virginia City, Cripple Creek. Logging towns like Granite Falls, Forks, Klamath Falls, Libby. Or fishing communities with empty harbors in Blaine, Coos Bay, and Westport. Now the new ghost towns are Yellowstone Club, Tamarack, Semiahmoo, and even Bend.

But unlike the old ghost towns where hoards of people stripped the land of trees, gold, silver, and the coastal waters of salmon and crab, these new "boomers" were developers who robbed the land of it's soul. They made the history of the area a moniker for their multimillion dollar developments, calling elaborate bars and restaurants names of things long buried by their greed. They co-opted Native American names and architecture, hanging Edward Curtis photos on the wall as if to authenticate the "western feel."

And now they are financially broke. More ghost towns. Torn up land with hulking, empty structures. And it seems the common theme among so many of these developments is the amount of leverage used by the developers. It wasn't their money. And the other common theme was the attempt by so many of them to appeal to the wealthy, or the wealthy-wanna-bes. Perhaps the lesson we may learn from these haunted developments is that there are not enough people willing to leverage their lives to live behind gated communities reeking of exclusivity. Certainly, that isn't part of the Western ethos of egalitarianism. It's as if these developers hadn't a clue what parts of the west remain in the air, the soil, the rivers despite their attempts to make it gated, exclusive, for the monied.

It's a good thing in the West, whether new or newer, that nature seemingly endures all our know-it-all follies and that the wind through the Ponderosa pines still reminds us that it will endure long after the Tamaracks and Horizons become dust.

Nature, Natural, and National Parks

Over the weekend, the North Cascades National Park announced that unless Congress legislatively directs the National Park staff otherwise, the Park is not only going to prevent volunteers from stocking high alpine lakes within the National Park boundaries with trout triploids, it will also eradicate the current fish within those lakes.  The North Cascade National Park's reasoning is those fish are not native to the high alpine lakes.  In fact, in their opinion, no fish are native.

The Park staff are supported in this by the North Cascades Conservation Council, a wilderness advocacy group, who believes the "lakes should be restored to their natural state."

Here is my question: what is natural?  The North Cascades have been hiked, climbed, ridden over and through by humans for centuries.  Native Americans hunted deer and bear, gathered berries, cut the timber and more than likely fished the rivers.  English, French, and American fur trappers scoured the area, gold miners panned, and boosters sought to make money off the Swiss Alps-like beauty.  More than likely there is very little land that has not witnessed some sort of human activity.  We have altered the landscape and the place has altered us.

To add to this issue, the fish stocking has been taking place for over 40 years, long before conservation advocates stood over a table drawing lines on a map defining the North Cascades National Park.  In other words, the fish stocking preceded the creation of the Park.  Lines on a map, after all, are arbitrary.  Ironically, just outside the boundaries, the United States Forest Service will allow fish stocking in the high alpine lakes within their jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service complains that visitors have dwindled in the parks.  National Park folks tend to believe it's because children do not want to go outside anymore.  However, note that numbers for fishing and hunting are down.  I think there is another reason that people make other choices.

Reaching the main entrance of any National Park these days you are delivered a set of "rules," along with admonishments about fishing, hunting, walking dogs, campfires...you get the drift.  We no longer have parks, we have museums.  As a result, people don't go because the recreation seems so constricted.  

Several years ago I wanted to fish a section of the fabled Yellowstone River within the Yellowstone National Park boundary.  I practice catch and release fly fishing.  Think Brad Pitt and A River Runs Through It.  When I pulled into a parking area, rigged up, I was told by another visitor that there was a sign: No Fishing.  I asked a ranger, way up the road, and he said: "we don't allow fishing because some people don't think it's scenic."  I kid you not.

We are in a sad place when we decide what is natural and where it "belongs."  To  not be able to look at trout in a lake, planted or not, as wild, means we have truly separated ourselves from nature.  That we continue to have some 19th century ideal of natural as something other than the Douglas fir outside my window, the Crow that just flew off the rooftop, or the Flicker attempting to find it's mate trilling down the street.  Natural, apparently, can only be in some humanly designated pristine sport, which incidentally, isn't really pristine.  

It's as if we have to have an either/or.  Pristine/cultured, virgin/...well you know.  And nature isn't really that way.  Nature and what is natural is all around us.  And we should be encouraging people to get outside, hike 12 miles, burn some calories, and catch a natural fish in a gorgeous lake.  It doesn't get much better.

Dealing with Population Booms

2007 saw 4.3 million births in the United States, topping the greatest population increase in the 1950s.  In other words, we're increasing our population.  And that doesn't include increases from immigration.

Usually these kinds of topics are sensitive.  But population issues impact economics, culture, the environment.  For instance, if we're worried about how to pay Social Security and Medicare for the aging Baby Boomers, what are we going to do for this whole new generation?  

And, from an environmental standpoint, no matter what we try to do to reduce carbon emissions, frankly, increases in population increase our contribution to the human enhancements to global climate change.  More housing, more transportation, more food...

The news of the population increase was buried.  And the actual article focused on the high percentage of births by unwed mothers (40%) rather than the mind numbing idea that there are 4.3 million new Americans (not including immigration numbers).  

Where is the discussion about what are we going to do with this boom in relation to a life that seems to be going bust?

Boom and Bust

While we continue to be fixated on the AIG bonuses, which I want to again plead that while it is unconscionable those bonuses were paid, it is still a distraction from issues that really need our collective attention, there was a fascinating and demonstrative news item originally reported a week ago.  In Bozeman, Montana, a gas line exploded, destroying a number of historic buildings on the main street of town.

For those of us who get to Bozeman, this is sad news.  Those buildings were indeed lovely.  Bozeman was one of those places that was seemingly immune from the economic nightmare devastating the country.

But the blast brought attention.  And a realization that indeed, all is not well in Paradise.  The bankruptcy of The Yellowstone Club, the moratorium on Ameya Preserve, (another land based development catering to not only the extremely rich but wealthy people who consider themselves into "sustainable" living by eating only foods "designed" by Alice Waters) along with other wealthy land owners beginning to collapse is causing a ripple effect in the Bozeman/Gallatin county economy.

Why do we care?  Couple of reasons.  More than likely as Bozeman begins to feel the impacts of the depression, many other rural areas will descend quicker and longer.  To come out of a depression in a rural area takes longer.  

But even more importantly, Bozeman is really a case study (as they say in MBA schools) on boom and busts.  Without doing the research to determine when boom and bust economies started in the US, I feel safe to say we have a long history of them.  Think gold and silver mining, and logging.  In fact, early in our history, booms and busts were natural resource dependent.  Come in, strip the area of the resources, make a lot of money, and leave a ghost town.  

We have, over time, managed to level out the booms and busts until the past twenty years.  Now we have dot.com booms and busts, the real estate boom and bust and it's safe to say without changing our economic models drastically, there will be another boom and bust within the next ten years.  

So here is Bozeman, on the rural/small town edge of a showy wealth driven boom and a last gasp of egos slide bust.  Strangers came into town, convinced the locals that these swanky real estate developments would enhance the economy over time, and now hundreds of carpenters, tile layers, ski lift operators, art gallery owners, interior designers, architects, escrow officers, are all beginning to understand what a bust feels like.  They attend bankruptcy hearings where formerly wealthy people who leveraged other people's money try to hold onto control of developments that were never real in the first place.  

There is gold in them there hills!

We clearly need a new economy to make sure we are not constantly re-enacting the creation of ghost towns.  You would think we'd learned our lessons from 1849.  Guess not.

It's Not Nice to Tinker With Nature

This week, several states are in the process of tinkering with nature.  Well, of course, governments, heck we humans, are always tinkering with nature.  But at least two actions seem classic examples of not really thinking too much.

First, the State of Idaho, where elk hunting seems to be considered The Primary Right of Man, will ask the federal government permission to kill at least 80% of the wolves in the Lolo National Forest area.  Apparently this kill is estimated to be about 100 wolves.  Why?  Because big game hunters and guides believe that wolf predation is causing declines in elk herds.  

Second, the States of Oregon and Washington are about to kill Sea lions in the Columbia River who are believed to be the sole reason for declines in salmon spawning up the river.  Salmon, of course, are not only a trophy fishery, but also harvested commercially and by several Native American tribes along the Columbia River pursuant to their treaty rights.  

And we all know the outcomes of these wildlife management schemes.  Sooner or later the elk herds in the Lolo National Forest will destroy the vegetation because other than hunters, there are no other predators, and once the Sea lions are gone, the wildlife biologists will have to find another animal to blame for salmon declines because, God Forbid, we can't engage in discussions about the complex and complicated reasons for salmon declines which might require a whole set of politically delicate decisions about dams, agriculture, real estate development, off shore international fishing, Native treaty rights, sports fishing....

It appears the Sea lions will begin to be trapped very soon.  The wolf issue will require decisions from federal fish and wildlife administrators.  My guess is the feds will not allow the culling of the wolves.  

But it will be interesting in a year or two to see what we can blame next after we have tried to tinker with nature.

Saving Utah One Auction at a Time

Just before the holidays the Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency within the Department of Interior, held a controversial oil and gas lease auction.  The lands where the leases are available are in southern Utah, and a number of the areas are adjacent to Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, among other places in that neck of the woods.

Tim DeChristopher, a 27 year old graduate student in economics at the University of Utah showed up at the Salt Lake City Bureau of Land Management office anticipating that he would participate in the protest outside the doors while the auction proceeded inside.  Instead, apparently on a whim, he registered as a bidder, got his paddle with the number 70 on it, and began bidding on 13 lease parcels for a total of $1.8 million.  That is until the other bidders, all with oil and gas companies, realized DeChristopher was "not one of them," and called the cops.

Since this is America, he was detained, questioned, and the case was referred to a federal prosecutor.  There is, after all, laws against this sort of thing.

But DeChristopher has not gone down silently.  He began fund raising for the $45,000 necessary to hold his bids.  Within days, he raised the money.  A former director for the Bureau of Land Management, Pat Shea, has volunteered to represent the graduate student.  And DeChristopher is talking seriously about raising the rest of the $1.8 million to buy the leases outright (although there is some discussion whether the current mining law, written in 1872, yes, that's right, will require him to actually mine the lands).  

Of course, the oil and gas companies were ballistic.  One was quoted mentioning a lynching party when they realized DeChristopher was upping the ante on the bidding.  They are probably ballistic over the favorable media attention this auction monkey-wrencher has been receiving.  And thus, the oil and gas folks are encouraging criminal prosecution, alleging since he was not a oil "player" he came to the auction with fraudulent intent.

While DeChristopher's actions seem novel, it reminded me of environmental organizations bidding on grazing leases with the US Forest Service in New Mexico a number of years ago.  The US Forest Service debated the legality of Forest Guardians having grazing leases with no intention of grazing on them, but in the end, Forest Guardians won out.  But at this point, DeChristopher is a hero.  His bidding was noted in Huffington Post, Democracy Now, and Truthout.  He was belatedly written about in the Washington Post and New York Times.

Although I have to also note when he talks about being frustrated with the system and looking for ways to stop the auction, it is the same language the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) cell members used when describing the preludes to their becoming radical.  In other words, they became frustrated working with the system and decided to torch something instead.  To DeChristopher's credit, he worked within the system, and in all actuality probably did a better job stopping the drilling or at least bringing attention to the location of the potential leases, than if he resorted to committing property damage.  In fact, his actions were pretty darn radical in a wonderful way.

Of course, as is always the case when activism plays by the rules and wins, the rules will more than likely change.  Years ago it was all the vogue to buy shares of stock and show up at corporate shareholders' meetings, raise a ruckus, maybe even introduce a new by-law.  People with as disparate backgrounds as environmentalists to Calpers, the largest institutional investor in America (Calpers is the California Pension System) used this method to push for corporations to change.  But corporate executives, not enjoying this kind of brouhaha at their meetings, frequently changed the rules, so that now, most shareholder meetings are PowerPoint presentations on why shareholders should appreciate the fact the executives are acquiring tons of stock options and milking the company until they leave with huge severance packages.

I think if the federal government is going to sell rights to natural resources through this kind of bid process there should be no problem if someone shows up, bids, wins, and comes up with the money, regardless of their intent to log, drill, or graze.  In other words, the highest bidder should obtain the right, whether they intend to use it or not.  Isn't that capitalism?  In DeChristopher's case I imagine it will be fairly easy for him to find some angel who will donate $1.8 million to protect land near the Arches or Canyonlands from oil rigs.  However, if I was a fiscal watchdog for the federal government, I would wonder how it is they are conducting auctions without verifying the assets of bidders in the room?  Do they need someone from Christies or Sothebys to show them how to do it?

Of course, there are lots of land management issues with this particular auction.  It seems to me that many in the preservation community believe that the boundaries of National Parks extend beyond the actual boundaries on the map.  In this case, the Bureau of Land Management, also, like the National Parks under the Department of Interior, manages much of the land outside Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.  And indeed, one of the missions, if you will, of the BLM is to use the land for minerals and grazing.  On a larger policy level, we might want to think about addressing this boundary issue.  Should boundaries of National Parks extend beyond the designated boundary such that visitors to the Parks don't see logging or mining operations (much less ORV use)?  Do we re-configure boundaries, which are somewhat artificial to begin with, by looking at similar ecotopes?  It is, of course, a thorny question, but it seems to me all sides to this issue in Utah, Montana, Wyoming in particular have entrenched to the point resolution seems against each of their interests.  But trying to resolve it through bidding at auctions or protests or pursuing criminal action is, well, not exactly big picture.  

Sooner or later we are going to have to realize we need to find a middle ground...

In the meantime, DeChristopher's donation web site is: www.bidder70.org.