Link

NPS photo

GNP’s draft EIS of this plan can be found here: Link

An empty 119-car freight train, more than a mile long from end-to-end, was stopped by an avalanche in the John F. Stevens Canyon. As it sat, a second avalanche roared down from the Park, de-railing 15 cars in two places. A third avalanche narrowly missed clean-up crews, and a fourth hit a truck traveling on U.S. Highway 2.

Another story on this controversial subject.

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The whine of snowmobile engines again echoes through the national forest in northern Idaho.

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The primary issues of substance in the forest include:

*introduction of substantial amounts of additional sediment into fisheries streams already seriously impaired and legally protected from further degradation;
* inevitable and officially predicted additional soil damage in an area with existing severe soil damage at a landscape level; and
* failure to protect remaining old-growth habitat and dependent species in an area already severely depleted in old growth.
These existing conditions and inevitable impacts are revealed to anyone who reads the Forest Service’s Environmental Impact Statement.

Link

Prices for Montana land is now at a premium. Many of the small farms and ranches around Main’s place are being subdivided into 5- and 10-acre ranchettes. Even nearby industrial timberlands are being sold for real estate development.

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Clarke has been heavily criticized by conservationists for opening up sensitive areas of public lands to oil and gas activities. In Wyoming, areas in the Red Desert and the Upper Green River Valley area have been opened to oil and gas drilling under Clarke’s tenure

Interesting story brought to us by the fine folks over at PEER:

Link

Washington, DC — Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Link

KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — A company that has built trams in tropical rain forests is considering Ketchikan for a tram in a temperate rain forest.
“We like rain forests,” said Josef Preschel, chief operating officer of Rain Forest Aerial Trams. “We have operations in tropical rain forests and we think it’s an interesting idea to develop our company to temperate rain forests.”

Link

The revised plant hardiness map, developed by the National Arbor Day Foundation, reflects the U.S. climate change, attributed to global warming, over the past 15 years. The effort is to provide updated information for planting trees, which reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.