Foreboding territory: Film about sexual harassment grimly fascinating

November 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

“The War Between the Sexes” is a term generally used with humor, to describe the flirting, game-playing and jockeying for power that mark relations between males and females in any culture.

In the new film “North Country,” however, the War Between the Sexes is no game. It’s an angry, ugly struggle between outsiders who want in and an entrenched hierarchy resolved to keep them out.

Anyone who’s ever sat through a tedious seminar on sexual harassment in the workplace, snickering inwardly at the list of no-nos and wondering why such seemingly common-sense advice has to be delineated, will find the answer to that question in “North Country.”

Based very loosely on the 2002 nonfiction book “Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law,” the film gives a fictionalized account of the first major sexualharassment class-action lawsuit brought in the United States.

Charlize Theron plays Josey Aimes (who’s based on Lois Jenson), a woman fleeing home to Minnesota and her parents to escape a brutal husband. With two children to care for and no job training, her prospects are few until a friend, Glory (played by the excellent Frances McDormand of “Fargo” fame) invites her to apply at the local steel mine, where the pay is good. Desperate to afford a home of her own and to be able to take her kids out to “a nice place” like Village Inn, Josey agrees.

What she doesn’t know is that her work, difficult and dangerous enough to begin with, will be made far more difficult by the deep and bitter hostility of the male mine workers who don’t want women joining their ranks.

Today in America, the line between sexual harassment and harmless flirting can sometimes be gray and blurry. Is it harassment to try to coax a co-worker out on a date if she doesn’t give a definite “no”? Is sexual banter permissible if both parties seem to enjoy it? What if someone else can overhear them?

Well, subtleties such as these aren’t the subject of “North Country.” The sexual harassment here is unmistakable, brutal and sickening. Josey must submit to a pelvic exam in order to be hired (to make sure she isn’t pregnant), then is told by her supervisor on her first day, “The doctor says you look darn good under those clothes.”

The male miners leer, slobber, hoot, and threaten. They scrawl crude drawings and disgusting graffiti on the walls of the mine and on its machinery. They surprise their female co-workers with undesired “gifts” in their lunch boxes and lockers. They grope them when they get the chance. And every protest from the women is met with the comment, “Where’s your sense of humor?”

If all this seems unbelievable, think again. The case that inspired the film, that of Lois E. Jenson vs. Eveleth Taconite Co., was replete with similar allegations, although the movie changes most of the details. Filed in 1988, the class-action lawsuit charged that male workers at the EVTAC mine in Eveleth, Minn., subjected female employees to a horrific barrage of abhorrent behavior, including offensive and pornographic graffiti, sexual touching, stalking, and tire-slashing.

“North Country” doesn’t follow the literal details of that case but rather its spirit. Directed by Niki Caro (“Whale Rider”), the film offers sharp images that comment on the themes and linger in the memory: A glimpse of Josey’s daughter playing with a Barbie doll, that grotesquely exaggerated ideal of feminine beauty. The northern Minnesota landscape, bleak and comfortless as conditions at the mine. A calendar in the mine supervisor’s office depicting a girl in tight shorts, legs spread wide. Enormous, implacable machines grinding, crushing, pulverizing.

The film has an outstanding cast, with Sissy Spacek as Josey’s mother, Woody Harrelson as her lawyer, and Richard Jenkins as her conflicted father, who reacts to her new job by asking, “You want to be a lesbian now?” Theron is the only incongruous member of the cast — although an excellent actor, she seems too fragile and beautiful to be a miner. (Is that a sexist remark? Perhaps, but Hollywood has a disturbing propensity for casting pretty faces in leading roles when it’s utterly inappropriate.) The other female miners, however, are earthy and credible, as is their behavior — they turn on Theron once she starts to make trouble.

The film is so grim that a merciful silence reigned through the theater when I saw it, instead of the usual jabbering of movie-goers who seem to think they’re in their own living room.

However, “North Country” has flaws. The male miners are completely twodimensional (even though they also are believable as resentful brutes). In particular, the final courtroom scene and the Perry Mason-style examination of a witness don’t ring true, attempting to put a quick, neat, dramatic ending on a dreary battle that had just begun. The movie glosses over and compresses the protracted, exhausting legal struggle that occurred in the real-life case, which dragged on for more than 10 years, sending Jenson into a profound depression and one of her female co-plaintiffs into a mental hospital. (Anyone who imagines filing a lawsuit is the ticket to a quick monetary reward should perhaps reconsider.)

The story, though certainly different from any of these, evokes memories of “Norma Rae” and “Mississippi Burning” — for racism and sexism arise from the same ancient and misguided human instincts, after all.

“North Country’s” release, purely by coincidence, dovetails with the recent death of Rosa Parks, the quiet civilrights activist. For, in real life, Parks and Jenson demonstrated how profoundly an ordinary person can alter the world by having the courage to do what’s right.

Published in Arts & Entertainment, November 2005

Coming Ag Expo to reflect trend toward small farms

November 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

Expect a Four States Ag Expo in 2006 that reflects the latest trend in agriculture: the rise of small producers. While the big machinery and traditional exhibitors will still be there, the Ag Expo, slated for March 9-11 at the Montezuma County Fairgrounds, will try to showcase small- and mediumsized farmers and ranchers as well.

These are the people who have 3 or 10 or 20 acres where they raise nontraditional livestock, value-added products, organic produce, or specialty crops such as greens for salad mixes, said Bob Bragg, executive director of the Ag Expo.

“We looked at the demographics of what’s happening in ag in this area,” he said. “Large farmers have not changed much in the way of numbers. Medium may have dropped a little bit.” But USDA statistics show small farms and ranches are on the increase, he said, and they need to be included in the Ag Expo.

“We’re trying to encompass the total agricultural-product picture here in the Four States area – livestock production, crop production, specialty crops, people who market direct to consumers,” he said.

Such producers include people who raise churro sheep for wool, small farmers who grow beans for soup mixes or specialty wheats, yak and elk ranchers, and farms such as Stone Free that market direct to consumers.

“Even wines can be considered specialty crops,” Bragg said. “I know (vintner) Guy Drew (in McElmo Canyon) is trying to find people to raise grapes for him.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says such farmers are marketing anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 in commodities annually. “That’s a demographic we haven’t looked at much,” Bragg said.

Dennis Hillyer, a member of the Ag Expo board and founder of Southwest Ag Inc., a farm-equipment supplier, has found that he doesn’t handle much big equipment any more, Bragg said. “Mostly what he does is for small producers, hobby farmers,” Bragg said.

“He’s been an exhibitor every year since it started. He’s seen the changes occurring in agriculture and the Four Corners region.”

Travis Imel, a member of the operations board for the Ag Expo, agreed. “I grew up in this area,” Imel said. “What we really see here is a growth in ag in this area in a lot of different stuff — organics, alternatives, people who have one or two acres and want to make it productive. There’s a whole emerging group of those farms who are in need of marketing.

“We don’t have the big corporate farms. That’s not the case here.” When Southwest Colorado began seeing a sharp increase in residential growth and rural subdivisions in the 1990s, everyone from old-timers to newcomers worried about the fate of area agriculture. To some degree, the rise in small farms and ranches is alleviating that concern.

“We went through a period where people said, ‘Farmers can’t make it and we won’t have any left,’ and that is still a concern, but I think ag is kind of coming around,” said Bragg.

He once raised hay in the Denver area but was forced out by development and moved to Cortez. Now, by teaching at the San Juan Vocational School and heading the Ag Expo, he hopes to help keep ag viable here. Farmers may be able to survive by getting creative and changing their outlook so they aren’t thinking only about producing on a commodity level, he said.

Nationwide, producers are branching out – raising pumpkins and selling apples to the people who come to see the pumpkins, putting in corn mazes, re-engineering their approach. The notion of small farmers and ranchers raising food and crops for marketing to the local area isn’t exactly new, Bragg noted.

“Fifty or 60 years ago there was a lot of local produce – McElmo Canyon veggies and fruit,” he said. “There was a creamery and a viable orchard industry.

“This isn’t something that’s never been done here before, but a lot of it disappeared and now it’s coming back,” Bragg said. “I think it’s because people want locally produced vegetables and meat produced direct to the consumer.

“And, with the high fuel costs, I wonder whether it’s going to continue to be economically feasible to truck food in from the coasts.”

If local producers could develop co- operatives or work through outlets such as Zuma Natural Foods in Mancos to sell their crops and livestock, the entire local economy could benefit, Bragg said. Farmers’ markets such as the one in Cortez on Saturday mornings are good outlets too, but generally operate only one day a week.

Marketing and trying new approaches are key to helping agricultural producers survive, he said, and the Ag Expo will provide a place for them to learn marketing approaches and swap ideas, as well as see the latest technology.

“American farmers have been some of the greatest producers in the world but some of the worst marketers,” he said. “They pay retail for everything and sell everything at wholesale.”

Since its inception in 1983, the expo has had ups and downs, but the last three years it has seen steady growth. The event draws growers, exhibitors and interested onlookers from around the Four Corners; in 2005 the gate count was 7,500.

“Attendance has grown pretty well,” Imel said. “There wasn’t a gate count done early on, but it’s grown significantly.”

“This is totally a four states farm show,” Bragg said. “It’s the largest in the area. You have to go to Greeley or California to find a bigger farm show.”

Bragg said traditional farmers and ranchers are generally happy to accept the newcomers to their industry, no matter the size of their acreage.

“I think the larger producers say that it’s a great idea,” he said. “They see the benefit of having a viable local agricultural economy. It’s good for the overall communities, it keeps the suppliers here. I’ve never found anybody that said, ‘Oh, those no-good small producers are ruining ag’.”

Information about the expo is available at www.fourstatesagexpo.com or by calling (970) 565-1836.

Published in November 2005

Biodiesel stirs excitement in Four Corners

November 17, 2005
Melissa Betrone

Advocates say biodiesel pollutes less, helps economy

Fueling America’s ever-thirsty gas tanks with a waste product from the fast-food industry sounds too good to be true, and critics maintain that it is.

But vegetable oil, in the form of biodiesel, has become the latest and greatest alternative-fuel idea. More than 500 fleet owners nationwide currently pump biodiesel into their fuel tanks.

Many hard-core environmentalists have already begun to produce their own biodiesel in their backyards, developing relationships with local fast-food joints that actually have to pay to rid themselves of used cooking oil. Once assured that the masked bandits absconding with their grease bombs have no plans to eat the oil, the fast-food owners are more than happy to kick it to the curb. One man’s trash is another one’s treasure, as they say.

FUELING UP WITH BIODIESEL

But biodiesel production and consumption could have implications that extend far beyond the margins of a midnight snack attack, proponents say. What has local farmers and planners excited from Dove Creek to Durango is biodiesel’s potential significance for the region’s economy and its agricultural producers.

In Montezuma and Dolores counties, agriculture remains an important component of the area’s economy and its quality of life. Farmers raise alfalfa, dryland beans, wheat and other crops; ranchers raise beef cattle; and all kinds of folks have horses for both work and pleasure. Even those who don’t, enjoy the open space and views provided by ag land.

But the economics of farming and ranching present tremendous challenges. Making a real living at agriculture is very difficult. The production of oil-seed crops for use in the manufacture of biodiesel could be an economic boon, and could bring 21st-century farmers and ranchers into 21st-century earnings rates at last.

The crops used to produce oils for biodiesel include a huge range of species and varieties, many of which are suited to the dry conditions and harsh growing climate of the Colorado Plateau. They include canola, false flax, dryland mustard, rapeseed, sunflowers, castor beans, euphorbias, oats, pumpkins, safflower, soy, hemp, even calendula, that pretty orange flower that grows in people’s gardens, and many more.

“It’s real encouraging that we can raise these (crops), and show a decent profit per acre.” said Jay Allen, a farmer in Dove Creek.

Allen planted an experimental sunflower crop this season, targeted for biodiesel production, that has turned out extremely well. He was able to use seeders that he already had, and grow the sunflowers in a dryland planting, without any herbicides or pesticides.

He looks forward to harvesting and processing the seed to find out how much oil per acre the planting will yield, and to make future calculations for himself and other farmers. Allen said farmers had grown sunflowers here during the 1980s, but they lacked a marketing plan and many went unsold. He hopes the result will be different this time around.

Bob Bragg of the San Juan Basin Technical College agribusiness program senses that many farmers would be receptive to growing biodiesel. “When I talk to farmers, they always ask what is available to us alternatively to what we are doing now,” he said.

Farmers must calculate not only what will grow here, but how well the crops grow, necessary inputs to production, yields per acre of oil seed, ease of harvest, and the ability to utilize existing equipment for planting, cultivation and harvest. They also must address the demands of processing facilities, which look for seeds that produce either a large quantity or a high quality of oil per seed volume.

While research into improving oilseed crops is still going on, their economic potential is unproven. Very few budgets exist indicating costs of pro- duction vs. return, and these suggest that oil-seed production for biodiesel processing won’t make anybody rich quick.

Bragg worries about this lack of information. “We need some yield data and we need some cost of seeds for producers in order for them to make a decision.”

A recent budget from a plot in North Dakota suggests that the net return on oil-seed production could be as low as $26 to $28 per acre. But Bragg remains hopeful. “It would be great if we could find enough profitability to make this feasible,” he said.

Production of the biodiesel “feedstock” is only half of the equation. The question remains, who will process the seed into oil and thus biodiesel? A group of citizens has formed a formal board to investigate the possibility of building a biodiesel processing plant in the area.

The San Juan Biodiesel Co-op has commissioned a feasibility study and is currently evaluating its content and recommendations, which include putting a biodiesel plant in Dove Creek. Logic indicates that placing a biodiesel “refinery” near the area producing the raw materials makes sense. Such a plant would require a steady supply of oil seeds, water, methanol or ethanol, and a way to dispose of the by-products of biodiesel processing, large quantities of seed meal, seed husks, and glycerin. Because of the low toxicity of both inputs and byproducts, much of this can be recycled into local agricultural operations in the form of livestock feed and compost.

Delivery to consumers, many of whom reside outside the Four Corners, is another concern. Utilizing existing roads and infrastructure, haulers could economically deliver biodiesel to a number of urban areas, including Albuquerque, Phoenix and Salt Lake City, and points in between.

Biodiesel got mixed reviews from the Colorado Legislature late in October, when the Rural Economic Development Committee passed a bill mandating that the state fill its diesel vehicles with a 20 percent blend of biodiesel. That bill will move on to the Legislature as a whole.

But a bill allowing a tax credit for farmers who plant crops to be used for fuel such as biodiesel and another that would have allowed a tax credit for biodiesel plants both failed.

The overall economic impact of biodiesel production in the Four Corners could be far-reaching. It could increase the profitability of on-farm production and bring in dollars from communities outside the region.

A biodiesel refinery would also provide jobs, and might even persuade children of farmers to return home to farm. Commented Allen about his own son: “If farming was a viable operation, he’d be here now.”

Published in November 2005

Look to agriculture to revive county’s health

November 6, 2005
Galen Larson

Montezuma County and Cortez are in ill health. I recently returned from a 20-day, 2,800-mile tour of the back roads and small towns in Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and northern California. Everywhere I went, I saw examples of viable economic development through use of agriculture and existing resources.

The locally owned restaurants were very good to superb. Local produce and meat on the menu — vegetables, herbs, chicken, seafood, and beef grown locally and highly advertised as such.

On the much-touted “Lonesomest Road in the West,” Highway 50 through northern Nevada, tourist stops, restaurants, and points of interest are popping up like mushrooms. One place way out there caught my eye: It had large solar panels by a dilapidated building with a sign that read “Breakfast All Day — Homemade Biscuits.” One has to check that out. The food was great — homemade pie with a flaky crust. We got out to walk the dog and I spotted two young men nearby. I asked them what was going on. They said they’d purchased 5 acres, drilled a 300-foot well, and put in 20 trailer hook-ups with a septic system. The panels provide more electricity than they can use at this time, so they are selling it back to the electric company. They also organized a gathering of horsemen and have a mock Pony Express ride every summer where competitors ride 50 miles for prizes. The event brings in about 500 horsemen and spectators for three weeks.

Another small town we encountered has people who specialize in raising pigs, not on large hog farms but on small individual farms with 40 to 100 pigs, free-range and fed a special diet. The meat is advertised as tasty, tender, slow-smoked and cured.

This is not an obtrusive industry. I didn’t see or smell the farms, although they were well-advertised. The meat is pricey, advertised in upscale magazines and sold in local shops. The head cheese was the best I’ve ever eaten outside of my mother’s from our own farm. I wasn’t in the mood for a $100 ham, but it was tempting when they gave me a taste. They didn’t need my business anyway, as they export as much product as they raise. Keeping the supply small and the demand high, they don’t need to get large to survive.

That, my friends, is vision — something sorely lacking in Montezuma County. We here seem to have a stock answer to anyone with new ideas: “It won’t work.” Narrow-mindedness, bull-headed attitudes and power plays have gotten us in this downward spiral.

We traveled through Leavenworth, Wash., a small community in the center of the state. It had fallen on hard times and was losing its business and tax structure. The city, county, and business interests got together and decided to have the town replicate a Bavarian village, with gingerbread decor on houses and stores. They were successful in bringing the town back to a lively and viable entity. That’s vision.

With our history, amenities, and location, something similar could be done here. “Genuine to the core,” Cortez’s motto, is nice-sounding, but what, may I ask, is the core? Webster defines “core” as the heart or inner part of fruit (usually thrown away), or to take out (well, we fairly well have done that with Wal-Mart). It seems kind of self-defeating to me.

We cannot continue to throw away what we have here and survive. (Of course, maybe we could become a ghost town and hope to be discovered, but I think it would be better to trade on our present agricultural heritage.) Agriculture can provide a multitude of good-paying jobs. Twenty-five years ago, our little town of Cortez had three farm-implement businesses. Apples, peaches and cherries were shipped to many states. “Grown in the shadow of Mesa Verde” was the logo. But we have let that vibrant economy slip away.

The health of any city depends on its looks: businesses, parks, great restaurants and attractive gateways. Not pawn shops, quick-loan companies and buyers of foreclosures, For Rent and Closed signs on empty businesses. I have never understood the animosity between the three towns in Montezuma County. Instead of working together, they’re at each other’s throats. In any game there may be rivalry, but it is teamwork that brings victory.

On my travels I came upon a small town that based its economy on one flower, lavender, and from that base other enterprises flourished — candles, soap, perfume, post cards, tours. Not only are they surviving, they enjoy the perfume of lavender in the air.

We here instead depend on hope. We hope we have a good crop of beans. We hope to have a good hay crop using artificial fertilizers, destroying the soil. We hope the tourists come and are in despair when they don’t because of wildfires or hantavirus. But there are 12 months in the year and with our climate we should be able to utilize every one of them.

One might think Tillamook, Ore., home of the famous cheese, would house a big intrusive factory. Not so — it is tastefully done, with 200 or more employees and an interesting tour. The wine country and small wineries have created an interstate commerce involving the purchasing and transporting of grapes from different parts of the state. Many communities along the coast have their economy based on myrtlewood carving, tables, lamps, figurines.

Here in our area, we have an exceptional wood to work with — Utah juniper, commonly called cedar. I don’t advocate cutting our forests down, but as with the myrtle, use just the down and dead trees.

The coasts of Washington, Oregon and California have a variety of fish, but no longer a never-ending supply, due to the pollution of two-thirds of our planet — the oceans. Could we raise fish in Montezuma County? It might be possible, if our irrigation canals weren’t polluted with artificial fertilizers and pesticides

We saw markets that sold local milk for $1.50 a gallon, with real cream on top. There were flower bulbs and herbs for sale, produced in large, family- owned greenhouses. It was a great trip, enjoyable and educational. Then we returned to Montezuma County, which reminds me of a large, healthy man who has gone through many feasts and famines and, through no fault of his own, has contracted a dangerous virus. He is being attended by a group of self-serving, inept interns who each have their own diagnosis and are too stubborn to work together to bring him back to health.

We are willing to accept what seems to be the only road to economic salvation — residential growth, which is like an amputation of our beautiful farmlands and our water. If we don’t wise up and use agriculture as our base economy, we will become a bedroom community for Durango.

The cure for our economic woes should be home-grown nourishment, not artificial injections from outside.

Galen Larson is a landowner in Montezuma County.

Published in Galen Larson

Rants of a young(ish) codger

November 2, 2005
Katharhynn Heidelberg

Call me a codger. A curmudgeon, even, but the older I grow, the more bothered — at times, puzzled — I become at things heard and seen. I have to admit there are things I can’t control, still, I can’t help but fantasize: What if I could control some things — the little things that get under my skin?

If it were up to me. . .

• Cats would receive equal time in the mainstream media. I have no hard and fast statistics, but it does seem television and movies feature dogs more often than cats. Even when you do see a cat on screen, it’s usually either paired with a dog, or even more often, cast in a negative light. I make no argument as to which animal is the “better” pet, because each has its advantages and disadvantages. (While Kitty is unlikely to protect you from a burglar, she’s also unlikely to retrieve certain items from your bathroom trash and scatter their remnants about the living room just as your boyfriend drops by.

Rover, on the other hand, doesn’t purr or bury his waste, but he doesn’t corner a bat in your bedroom at 4 a.m., either.)

There’s the kids’ movie “Cats and Dogs,” which reinforces the idea that dogs are noble, loving creatures, while cats are evil and conniving. OK, so my cat would take over the world if only she had opposable thumbs, but I’m sure she would be a benevolent overlord. And, in what’s doubtless a sign of crankiness, many cartoons featuring cats get on my nerves. Frankly, I’d like to see Tom eat Jerry. Just once. Ditto for Sylvester and Tweety.

But the most irritating trend by far is the way media mythologize people who prefer cats: they are either old maids or old-maid lunatics (because there’s something “wrong” with women who choose to be alone).

There’s even a “Law and Order” episode in which the serial rapist picks his victims by whether they have a cat — if they do, it means they must live alone, and so, are safe targets. There’s no suggestion in the media, meanwhile, that single people with dogs are in any way socially deficient or endangered. Dogs are cool. Cats are for losers.

But if it were up to me. . .

• The stupidity of having even cash paying customers “pre-pay” for gas would become obvious to the corporate bigwigs who set fuel-store policies. How should I know how much the gas will cost before I top the tank? If I were any good at predicting numbers, I’d have long since won Powerball. Yeah, I know I could estimate how many gallons were needed and multiply by the pump price, but that’s annoying as well as imprecise, and I don’t much like being punished for other people’s dishonesty.

• People would stop saying “first annual” and “revert back to.”

• Song remakes would actually improve the song. I don’t know who was doing what to Seal’s “Crazy” the other day, but she should’ve stopped. I also heard a version of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” recently that was so awful I wanted to shoot the radio. C’mon, people. It’s not as if it requires much effort to make ’80s and ’90s pop music better.

• Advertisers wouldn’t use living creatures as irrelevant props in television commercials. I remember a furniture store that had tiger cubs (cats!) crawling all over everything. It made me wonder how many customers checked their sofas for tiger poop.

• There would be an actual law against advertisers using their sweet l’il (and frequently inarticulate) children as product shills. Save Junior’s acting debut for the family-reunion video and spare the rest of us. He’ll thank you for it later.

• Parents who want to see a movie would pick a family-appropriate film or find a babysitter. It’s not fair to the kids to take them to something they won’t enjoy, and it certainly isn’t fair to subject the entire theater to the behavior they display to let you know they aren’t enjoying it.

• Those polite, on-screen announcements that say: “Please no talking during the movie,” would take a more direct approach. To wit: “YO! SHUT UP! AND TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONE. WE’RE NOT KIDDING. THE SEATS ARE WIRED WITH ELECTRODES AND IT WILL FILL US WITH SADISTIC GLEE TO PUSH THE BUTTON!”

Honestly, what are people thinking when they come to the movie and leave their ringers turned on? If the call is so important, they’ll either have to leave the theater when it comes or yak away like a jackass, thereby wasting my money and running the distinct risk of having to retrieve the phone from an orifice not designed to hold it. I’m also puzzled by people who play games on their phones — if the movie’s not as entertaining as a teenyweeny video game, why did they even come?

• They would invent a throat spray that temporarily paralyzes the vocal cords of teenagers who come to the movies in packs, and then, true to form, behave like hyenas.

• People would show respect to theater employees by picking up their own trash and keeping their feet off the seat backs without being told. People who don’t behave in a suitably civilized fashion — for instance, grown men who sneer at the employee, “I’ll just give you the five bucks you make in an hour” — would be forced to work one week on the other side of the counter. For free.

• Finally, I would really be able to accept the things I cannot change. Ah, yes. If it were up to me.

Katharhynn Heidelberg is a journalist in Montrose.

Published in Katharhynn Heidelberg

The Faux West

October 22, 2005
David Feela

Rodeo Days reminds us that the West is not only a tourist attraction but also a celebration of tradition for folks in Cortez. A law firm in Durango may have “partners,” but we still call them “pardners.” Irritants may get on people’s nerves but around here, burrs get under our saddles. Spurs and chaps, cowboy hats and belt buckles – the accessories for holding out against a new frontier.

This is the case, sometimes to the extreme, in the Faux West, places where tourists flock to mix up the old with the new. And the most faux, faux away location I’ve encountered since moving west of the Mississippi is Sedona, Ariz. I know. I’ve been there, once in 1976, and then just a month ago. Lucky I only had to draw on my credit card twice. A tourist guide oriented us by discussing the three regions we’d encounter in Sedona: Uptown, West Sedona, and the Village of Oak Creek, where our B&B was located. She called ahead to check directions. On a map she pointed to an important intersection where 89A and Highway 179 divided. I asked, “where?” She said, “Y.” I asked, “Y?” and she drew an “X” on the map at a spot referred to as the “Y.” Since we were searching for a place to sleep, I figured our guide was proposing that X plus Y would equal a few Zs. She was right. We pulled in at the Cozy Cactus. Its name prickled the hairs at the back of my neck, but what attracted me was how my Cactus bed had back-door access to some of the 1.8 million acres of national-forest land. If we stepped off the patio and climbed through a ready-made opening in the fence, we’d be playing footsie with the wilderness.

After unpacking we visited the uptown district, a Faux West at its best, or worst, depending on where you take your stand.

Uptown operates under the notion that it’s still the late 1800s. Places like the Western Trading Post, Mesquite Grill, Hitching Post Restaurant, Stage Coach Emporium, and Olde Tyme Photo Works testify to a veneer of Old West fantasy.

I expected to see a sheriff amble out of a saloon when a man packing a cell phone on his hip bumped into me as he stepped out to the street. I glanced at the shop sign: The Hummer Store? We went in opposite directions. I counted 20 paces, glanced behind me, but he must have been occupied in his mind, polishing chrome.

We’d planned on hiking to the Boynton Canyon Vortex, one of four local vortexes, spinning like a spur on the west side of Sedona. A vortex has no association with the Old West but is a New Age phenomenon where psychic rejuvenating energy collects like hairs in a shower drain. The vortex was a simple hike, not even a mile, but we still have not purchased a Red Rock Pass. The pass is required for vehicles parking on the national forest and for parking along access roads that pass through national forest, and probably for peeing at the side of the road. Twenty dollars gets you a year of access, $5 gets you a day.

People say that’s reasonable, but it strikes me as a way to disguise an additional day-use fee. There’s an entire page in the Forest Service’s “Recreation Guide to Your National Forest” justifying the fee, telling readers that 17 percent of the revenue went for the cost of collection. If my aloud if the twisted juniper growing near our septic tank in Cortez is also a sign of vortex activity. I told her, no, it’s probably from flushing the toilet too much.

That evening, we decided to see the national forest on the other side of our fence, where the ancient rock formations persist despite New Age thinking. Bell Rock is so perfectly contoured, its shape repeats its name. But it’s Castle Rock where we decided to climb. On a small promontory we stopped for a breather and to look at the landscape we’d just climbed above. And that’s when I saw it so clearly, the line that explained everything about the old and the new, a line defined by a simple wire fence with a series of Forest Service signs: Healing in Progress.

A mile below us it looked as if the Village of Oak Creek’s tide of development had hit an indestructible, wire wall. On the opposite side of the fence, national-forest land luxuriously stretched.

It was, and still is, a duel: two ways of life squaring off to see which one will survive.

David Feela is a teacher at Montezuma-Cortez High School.

Published in David Feela

Preserving native culture

October 17, 2005
Connie Gotsch

The books have titles like “Taytay’s Memories” and “Swift Eagle of the Rio Grande.” Bound in sturdy hard covers, the thick volumes with their heavy ragged-edge pages evoke memories of the library on snowy childhood Saturdays, or the rush to finish the arithmetic lesson, and read a few precious pages before Mrs. Jones put the spelling list on the board.

These volumes are part of an exhibit entitled “Native American Picture Books of Change: The Art of Historic Children’s Editions,” currently at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe.

"WEAVING"

The show traces efforts by Anglo- American authors in the early 20th Century to accurately depict Native American lives, beliefs, customs and culture, first for Native children, then for children across the country.

MIAC’s curator of collections and registrar, Anita McNeese, stands in the intimate gallery that holds “Picture Books,” and gazes at pen-and-ink , black-and-white sketches of youngsters herding sheep, learning to weave, or following a band of wild turkeys up a mountain path.

She placed the show in a small space on purpose, to give the visitor an intimate look at the books. Special cases designed to look like open pages offer the feeling of finding a good read.

“They portrayed Native Americans as they were. Not just as part of the (romantic) American West,” she says softly. “The authors took actual tales of the tribes and adapted them to children. They had Native American illustrators.”

The collaboration resulted from a shift in the U.S. Government’s approach to Native American education in the second decade of the 20th Century, McNeese explains.

Before 1920, Indian boarding schools pushed children to assimilate into non-native life.

But after that date, the Bureau of Indian Affairs slowly began to encourage students to learn their own history and culture, as well as that of other Americans.

The movement began in New Mexico with author Elizabeth Willis DeHuff. A Georgia native who attended Barnard College and taught in the Philippines, she followed her husband, John David DeHuff, to the Santa Fe Indian School in 1913, where he had taken the job of superintendent.

Mrs. DeHuff fell in love with the Southwest, but “didn’t approve of the rigid treatment of Indian people, still found at that time,” Ms. McNeese says. “She (began) looking for a way to soften it — to give the kids a better experience away from home and family.”

Realizing that the children loved stories, she encouraged them to share their tribal folk takes, and began writing them down. Soon, the older boys added illustrations to the manuscripts. McNeese rattles off a list of young artists who collaborated with Mrs. DeHuff. “Fred Kabotie, Otis Polelonema, Velino Herrera, Velino Shije and Ma-Pe-Wi.”

By 1922, DeHuff was publishing her books, as well as giving them to lonely students when they entered school. First came “Taytay’s Tales,” with drawings by Kabotie and Polelonema.

Smiling, McNeese strolls to a case holding the book’s front illustration. “The frontis,” she calls it, adding, “Taytay is telling winter stories to his grandchildren. Notice the picture’s in color. But most of the (internal) illustrations would be in black-and-white.”

That’s because the exquisite image of boys listening to their grandfather was created by laying multiple plates of individual colors over each other in alignment, an expensive process known as color separation. Publishers could only afford to employ the method of reproducing pictures once or twice in a book.

Today, color separations are not used at all in children’s books, McNeese says. “And we don’t have pictures that are quite as lovely, quite as rich (as those in Taytay),” she sighs. “Taytay’s Tales” proved so successful that DeHuff published “Taytay’s Memories” in 1924, and “Swift Eagle of the Rio Grande” in 1928.

“ ‘Swift Eagle of the Rio Grande’ follows a year in the life of a young pueblo boy,” explains McNeese. “It tells how he learned to behave, and what was expected of him — his chores, and everything.”

She glances at a black-and-white illustration for “Swift Eagle,” with publisher’s notes about copper and silver plate reproduction scribbled in the margin. Pencil lines set registration points. She nods at the black x’s. “We decided not to erase them. They’re part of the illustration.”

This particular picture shows how Swift Eagle’s family eats. “Grandfather first, then father, and so on down the family.” McNeese thinks a moment. “Of course that was in 1928. It would be different today.” She laughs a little.

After DeHuff, more authors in the Southwest began to work with Indian stores. Columbia University-trained anthropologist Ruth Underhill used knowledge gathered in field studies among the Tohono O’Odham Indians, Navajos, and other groups to write for and about Indian children.

Ann Nolan Clark started writing when she needed books for her firstthrough fourth-graders at Tesugue Pueblo. After working with the Navajo, she created the bilingual Little Herder Series in the 1950s with the help of a Navajo interpreter.

The bilingual stories follow Diné children through their spring, summer, fall, and winter activities at home and in school. “They’re just beautiful,” whispers McNeese.

By 1960, Anglo authors and Native American illustrators had produced books for Navajo, Pueblo, and Lakota/Dakota children. McNeese nods at a volume written in English and Lakota Sioux.

Then the BIA dismantled the program that encouraged the collaborations between Native artists and Anglo writers. Many original illustrations for their books disappeared.

Fortunately, DeHuff maintained a close relationship with her illustrators until her death in the early 1980s, keeping many of their drawings, and her publishers’ proofs. She donated all of them to the School of American Research in Santa Fe at the end of her life. The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture received them after it opened.

Still, the history of that exciting and unique literary era disappeared — until another very creative person accidentally rediscovered it.

“Rebecca Benes owned an art shop that sold illustrations,” explains McNeese. When some of Clark’s and DeHuff’s books came her way, “she became fascinated, and started researching their art work.”

That led her to MIAC’s archives, where she studied DeHuff’s illustrations. Benes also set about locating some of the missing drawings.

By 2004, she had gathered enough material to publish a reference book, “Native American Picture Books of Change: The Art of Historic Children’s Editions,” documenting the history and evolution of the story books created at Indian boarding schools.

McNeese proposed that the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture create an exhibit based on the book. Benes agreed, and with McNeese as curator, they developed the show.

The exhibit has two parts. The first, installed at MIAC through June 2006, focuses mostly on ‘’Swift Eagle of the Rio Grande,” with some text and illustrations from “Taytay’s Tales,” “Taytay’s Memories,” the Little Herder Series, and folk stories such as “The Pine Gum Baby,” from Taos Pueblo.

The second installment offers a broader sample of boarding-school stories. It is designed to tour the United States as part of TREX, the Museum of New Mexico’s Traveling Exhibits Program.

“It is truly a beautiful exhibit from a beautiful book,” says McNeese.

“Rebecca is a wonderful individual, and very passionate about getting the history and the illustrations (together).”

Published in October 2005

Great Stories have timeless appeal

October 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

Recently, while casting about for something to read, I came upon a bestselling novel by a current author. About two chapters into the book, I suspected that all was not right with the heroine, a woman in her 30s. I skipped ahead and learned she was going to spend the rest of the novel dying slowly of a progressive disease.

I threw the book aside and picked up the latest Harry Potter.

Now, this indicates a flaw in me, not the author. Books about serious subjects, books that deal with hard truths, are necessary and important, and this one was skilfully written.

But, alas, sometimes the world is too much with me, and I just can’t take any more hard truths. When I pick up something to read at bedtime, I want to be transported away from reality, not to have it ground into my face.

So I look for Great Stories — the sort that keep you turning pages long after you should have gone to sleep, that cause you to neglect your chores and snap at your spouse for disturbing you.

Sadly, you can read a good book a lot faster than an author can write one, and Great Stories can be difficult to find. So I offer my personal favorites in the hopes my list may help someone else who’s got a desperate craving for a good read.

My criteria for Great Stories are:

  • They’re well-written and relatively easy to read. This is why many children’s books are on the list: Children’s authors know not to let the writing get in the way of the plot.
  • They are fresh and original, not predictable or formulaic, with a plot that moves along and harbors genuine surprises. This eliminates most romances and murder mysteries.
  • They have characters who, by the end of the book, seem as real and familiar as your friends.
  • They possess a magical quality that carries you to another time or place.
  • They’re worth reading more than once. You’re left satisfied yet bereft when you turn the final page.

Understand, this isn’t a list of Great Literature. Some of these works have deep meanings and serious themes; some don’t. All are fun to read.

I thought about breaking these into children’s and adult books, but really good stories don’t carry an age limit. So here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite Great Stories:

General Fiction

  • “Old Yeller” by Fred Gipson. It’s not just about a dog, it’s about life in Texas in the late 1800s — dealing with rabies outbreaks, vicious wild boars, the struggle just to stay alive. This novel is grittier and more exciting than the slick Disney movie it inspired. And it’s vastly better than the odious “Where the Red Fern Grows,” another boy-and-his-dog book, with its many descriptions of sadistic, pointless raccoon hunts and its bizarre message that cruelty to animals is fine so long as they aren’t dogs. (For an excellent take on “Red Fern,” go to www.Troynovant.com.)
  • “Clan of the Cave Bear,” by Jean Auel. This tale of a young Cro-Magnon girl adopted by Neanderthals — implausible though it sounds — is riveting. Auel did such thorough research into Cave Men and the Ice Age that you believe all of this could have happened, and you long to have experienced the earth when it was young and wild. The sequel, “The Valley of the Horses,” is also enjoyable, but the rest of her books went steadily downhill.
  • “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” by Mark Twain. Pure fun. The climax in the cave is so scary it gave me nightmares when I was young — but that didn’t stop me from reading the book over and over. My only caveat is that the villain, “Injun Joe,” is a little troubling in our more enlightened age.
  • “Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain. Controversial today because it uses the N word repeatedly, it is in fact an outraged blast against slavery, and a flawless satire of human pretensions and prejudices. But it’s also a great story about two friends floating down the Missisippi River and having one adventure after another.
  • “To Kill a Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee. So what if she wrote only one book? That’s one masterpiece more than most authors will ever produce. Although this is a powerful statement about racism, it’s also a touching and suspenseful tale of childhood in the South. The children and their dialogue are entirely believable. And their father, Atticus Finch, shows such quiet strength that he was named the No. 1 Movie Hero of All Time by the American Film Institute for the 1962 film version of the book.
  • “Gone With the Wind,” by Margaret Mitchell. This could have been pure soap opera, but the character of Scarlett O’Hara — conniving and selfish yet oddly sympathetic — makes it something special. The unconquerable Scarlett copes with three marriages, civil war, poverty and near-starvation, sickness, attacks by lecherous, thieving soldiers, and unrequited love.

Sci Fi and Fantasy

  • All six of the Harry Potter books. J.K. Rowling’s works are the best thing to come out of England since the Beatles. Featuring more plot twists and surprises than any Agatha Christie mystery, they make you realize that even a novel over 700 pages can be way too short
  • “Dune,” by Frank Herbert. The rest of the “Dune” series was a disappointment, but this intricately plotted tale of political intrigue upon a mythical desert world is pure magic.
  • The “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The movies were outstanding. The books are even better.
  • “The Chronicles of Narnia,” by C.S. Lewis. Interestingly, Tolkien criticized these allegorical tales as borrowing too heavily from different mythologies. But they’re fun to read. The underlying Christian message is lovingly and gently stated — tolerable, I think, even for non-Christian readers — except for the final novel in the series, “The Last Battle,” which I found gloomy and weird.
  • “The Chronicles of Amber,” by Roger Zelazny. Compulsively readable, the quintessential sword-and-sorcery fantasy, they have no deep meaning or redeeming social value — they’re just entertaining.
  • “A Wrinkle in Time,” by Madeleine L’Engle. A mind-stretching science-fiction novel for children.
  • “The Time Machine,” by H.G. Wells. His vision of the future of humanity is spooky, visionary and ultimately humbling.

Non-fiction

  • The Laura Ingalls Wilder books. The first, “Little House in the Big Woods,” is a tad slow for today’s children, but the rest are heart-warming and fascinating. Laura and her family are always poor, always teetering on the edge of survival, always struggling against locust plagues, crop failures, and brutal winters — but Laura recounts her childhood with such fondness that we wish we, too, had grown up on the vast and beautiful Western frontier. (She later admitted she deliberately omitted some of the grimmest episodes of her early life.)
  • “All Creatures Great and Small” and its many sequels, by James Herriot. The memoirs of a veterinarian whose practice began in the 1930s, these books are a collection of individual tales about Herriot’s many and varied clients. Good humor, love for animals, and fondness for the rural Yorkshire country infuse these stories.
  • “Into Thin Air,” by Jon Krakauer. You know some of these people won’t make it off Mt. Everest, but you can’t put down this slim volume with its vivid, flawless descriptions of the mountain and the ill-fated thrill-seekers driven to get to its top.

These are my all-time favorites — email me (freepress@fone.net) if you’d like to share yours. And happy reading.

Published in Arts & Entertainment, October 2005

Good news, bad news about regional air quality

October 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

The “big picture” of air quality in the Four Corners appears murkier than the horizon on a windy day. That was the conclusion to be drawn from a regional air-quality conference that took place in mid-September at Fort Lewis College.

But one thing emerged sharp and clear from the discussions: The region’s air quality is worse than it ought to be, though finding specific culprits would stymie Sherlock Holmes.

In some ways, regional air quality is good. Mike Silverstein, planning and policy program manager for the Air Pollution Control Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said particulates — solid particles such as dust — are relatively low in Southwest Colorado.

“You don’t violate any of the national ambient air-quality standards,” he said.

Particulates are produced by wildfires, road dust, auto exhaust, and wood-burning stoves. Measures that reduce particulates include roadsweeping, the use of de-icers other than sand, modern wood stoves, and anti-idling ordinances. “We have a lot of diesel vehicles that folks just leave running,” Silverstein said.

But the picture for ozone is less rosy. Although ozone in the stratosphere high above the earth is beneficial, ozone at ground level is a known lung irritant and a factor in asthma, reduced lung capacity, and increased susceptibility to respiratory illness, Silverstein said.

Ozone, which is produced by a complex interaction of sunlight and emissions from engines, power plants and even paints, is “a regional pollutant,” Silverstein said. “A lot is transported in from other Western states and also from Asia.”

Ozone levels in Southwest Colorado generally hover below the federal standard of 85 parts per billion, the level at which significant health effects may occur, but occasionally spike above that. The levels are, on average, about 20 percent less than those in Denver, he said, but an audience member noted that that is high for a sparselypopulated area.

“I don’t think the West is rural any more,” Silverstein responded. Monitors record ozone at sites around the Four Corners, including Mesa Verde, the San Juan power plant west of Farmington and Bloomfield.

Currently, Mesa Verde averages about 69 ppb, a level which the Environmental Protection Agency calls “moderate.” Levels lower than 65 ppb are considered “good.”

The three-year average at the New Mexico sites has been around 76 ppb. “There are health issues at levels below the federal standard,” Silverstein warned.

Erik Aaboe of the New Mexico Environment Department said ozone has been an issue in the Four Corners ever since the federal standard was revised and monitoring began.

“We didn’t really anticipate high ozone levels here because, traditionally, problem areas have 10, 20, 50 times as many people,” he said. Ozone is much higher here than it should be, given the low population density.

“We really have to be concerned because there’s not a lot of headroom to degrade air quality further before health concerns become a real issue,” he said.

Mary Uhl, acting Albuquerque bureau chief of the New Mexico Environment Department, agreed. “Three or four years ago, we started noticing the upward trends in ozone at Farmington sites,” she said. “Those alarmed us. This is a relatively rural area and should have good air quality. Frankly, those levels are the kinds we might expect in Albuquerque.”

The concern prompted the NMED to enter into an Early Action Compact with the EPA and local officials to implement an air-quality improvement plan, she said. That plan was approved by the EPA this summer and is the first in the country.

The state of New Mexico then provided hundreds of thousands of dollars for a modeling analysis to study the impacts of the proposed Desert Rock and Peabody power plants, Uhl said. It also looked at oil and gas development in the northern San Juan Basin and Farmington.

The analysis projected increased nitrogen-oxide emissions but lower volatile organic compounds — compounds produced by gas wells and linked to ozone. The lower levels are predicted because of the playing out of some older oil and gas wells, Uhl said.

The analysis showed little overall effect from the coming power plants, Uhl said. “The new power plants and oil and gas will have little impact on ozone,” she said, because of decreases from other sources.

Mercury is another pollutant of particular concern in the Four Corners because of its toxicity. Released into the air by coal-burning and into the water through leaching from old mine sites, it is particularly damaging to infants and children. Silverstein said there are two mercury-monitoring sites in Colorado, one at Steamboat Springs, the other at Mesa Verde National Park. The latter has shown some of the highest depositions of mercury in the country.

He said an inter-agency Four Corners Air Quality Task Force is being developed to look at the cumulative effects of power plants as well as coalbed-methane drilling in the San Juan Basin.

The League of Women Voters of Montezuma County has expressed concern about air quality and mercury pollution and has called for more monitoring sites in the area.

But Silverstein voiced optimism about future air quality. “Projections are that emissions will be lessening from many sources,” he said.

Published in October 2005

The air that we breathe

October 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

A proposed $2 billion power plant 30 miles south of Farmington could be a boon to an impoverished people — or a curse that would degrade health and the environment.

Those sharply conflicting views were presented at a regional air-quality conference in Durango last month. Desert Rock, a 1,500-megawatt coal-fired facility proposed on Nenahnezad Chapter land on the Navajo reservation, faces fierce opposition in some quarters although it is touted as one of the cleanest facilities ever planned.

The plant prompted conflicting presentations at the forum, which was sponsored by the Fort Lewis College Environmental Center and San Juan Basin Health Department.

Desert Rock would feature modern equipment that would capture 98 percent of nitrogen-oxide and sulfurdioxide emissions, said Suzy Baldwin, an independent contractor working with Sithe Global, the Houstonbased company that would build the plant. And a carbon- injection system would control at least 80 percent of mercury emissions, she said in her presentation. The amount of pollutants added to the air would be minimal compared to emissions from existing power plants, she said, and would be counteracted by ongoing reductions in pollution.

“Generally, emissions in the Four Corners region are going down,” she said.

The Four Corners’ two existing plants are the 1,500- megawatt San Juan Generating Station near Waterflow, N.M., and the 2,040-megawatt Four Corners Power Plant near Fruitland, N.M. The latter was ranked first in the nation by a D.C.-based environmental group for nitrogen- oxide emissions in 2004.

Together they belch forth 67,000 tons of nitrogen oxide and 37,000 tons of sulfur dioxide annually, vs. the 3,500 tons of each pollutant that the new power plant would emit, according to Sithe.

The region also sees pollution from the 2,250- megawatt Navajo Generating Station near Page, Ariz., and Peabody Energy wants to build a 300-megawatt power plant 24 miles south of Chaco Canyon National Park in New Mexico.

Coal-fired plants also emit mercury, a toxic element of particular concern regionally because of high levels in some local bodies of water.

Worried about the cumulative effects of all the emissions, some citizens have challenged the idea of building any new power plants in the area.

Just say ‘dooda’?

“We have a pollution problem,” said Sarah Jane White of Dooda, a Navajo group opposed to the plant. (“Dooda” means “no” in Navajo.) “It covers the San Juan Valley all the way down to Red Mesa.”

Speaking at the conference, White said preserving air quality and the environment is essential.

“We all need to protect our sky, our air, our earth, our water – everything that Nature has given us,” she said. Lori Goodman of Diné CARE (Citizens Against Ruining our Environment) agreed.

“We feel this discussion needs to include the health effects and the environment and the cultural beliefs of the community, not all about jobs, jobs, jobs,” she said.

But jobs and money are the primary reasons the the holders of grazing rights were for the purposes of negotiation. “When they say the people kept coming around, it’s negotiations,” she said.

But in a phone interview later, White was adamant that holders of grazing rights, in particular elderly people, had told her representatives of the DPA had argued them into signing away the rights.

“On more than one occasion they said, ‘No, we can’t do that. We need our grazing land.’ But they told them, ‘OK, if you don’t want to sign we’re still going to make way for the plant anyway. The (Navajo) president said OK already, and the land department. You’re going to lose out on your $1,000 (signing) bonus’.”

White said the elders were also offered $100 to go to chapter meetings, presumably to support the power plant. “I think it is not right to offer cashpoor people $1,000 to trick them into signing,” White said

Increased coal-mining

She also voiced concern over the impacts of increased coal production at the Navajo Mine, operated by BHP Billiton, which sits near the proposed plant and would be its coal source. The strip mine now fuels the Four Corners Power Plant.

Desert Rock would require 5 1/2 million to 6 million tons of coal per year and would create an additional 200 jobs at the mine, according to Steven Begay, general manager for Diné Power Authority.

Ninety-two percent of the work force at the Navajo Mine is Native American, according to information from BHP Billiton.

But White believes backers paint an overly rosy picture of how the power plant would affect employment on the reservation.

“There’s 200 jobs at the power plant and 200 for the mining. That’s not even enough to cover the people in San Juan County,” she said. “To put your health on the line for who’s going to be one of those 200 people — I just don’t see it. But people say, ‘Oh, wow, we’re all going to have a job!’ It’s like gambling.”

She said she spent last summer visiting homes in the vicinity of the mine and questions how beneficial it is. “The community people there are not benefiting from this coal mine,” she said. “I went into these houses — they have no running water and no electricity.”

The mine’s neighbors must put up with dust, vibrations and noise from drag lines operating 24 hours a day, she said, scraping away earth and vegetation to expose the coal seam. One man told her his hogan had been cracked by the vibrations. The stripmining crosses the Nehnahezad and Burnham chapter lands, forcing people to be moved out of homes where they may have lived since birth.

“One elderly living with her daughters — the drag line is coming toward her. She lives 2 miles away and she’s going to have to move,” White said. “Us Navajo are very different from Anglos. We don’t like to be relocated. We’re very traditional people.”

And while proponents may view the power-plant site as uninhabited badlands, White sees it as rich in history.

“There’s unmarked burial sites, ruins, old hogans made out of rocks and packed with mud. There’s memories of whose grandfather built them and lived in them. It’s a beautiful desert.”

White admits the Navajo Nation needs jobs, but says they shouldn’t come with deteriorating air quality.

“You see young people looking for jobs — my son is one. But why put your life on the line to get a few dollars, and down the road be sick?”

Seeing Old Smoky

A severe asthmatic, White said she was so ill a few years ago that she was in and out of the hospital for weeks, pumped full of steroids. She said she prayed to get out of the hospital — “not for the riches of the world, I just want to be healthy. My prayer came true.”

That, she said, is why she’s campaigning against another power plant — to preserve people’s health. “Every morning I get up and I see the old (Four Corners) power plant. I call it Old Smoky. I don’t want another one. It’s not worth it.”

But Baldwin maintains the Desert Rock plant is unfairly being stigmatized because of concern over the older plants and their much-higher emission levels. “We haven’t put out one emission yet, and people are protesting.”

Published in October 2005

Battling racism in the Four Corners: Racist incidents recounted at civil-rights open forum

October 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

 

Related stories:

On Sept. 22, members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission traveled to Cortez and heard some potentially explosive charges of racism at a meeting in City Hall.

The commission hears appeals from the Colorado Civil Rights Division, explained Chairperson Delio Tamayo, and advises government on ways to combat discrimination.

There’s plenty to combat in the region, if testimony at the forum is any indication. The commission heard from several citizens who said they’d been subjected to racial harassment.

Julie Smith of Dolores, a white woman married to an African- American, gave a chilling account of an incident that happened a year ago in her town. She said her teenage son was driving home when three minors in another vehicle started following him.

“They bumped his van at every stop sign,” Smith said. “They were rolling down the windows, calling him a nigger.”

Her son turned left at a stop sign to avoid them. They drove a block and turned left, then drove the wrong way down a one-way street and rammed him head-on from 50 feet away. The family van was destroyed, Smith said.

The driver was charged with numerous counts including menacing, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation, she said. Eventually he pleaded guilty to reckless driving and criminal mischief and was sentenced to 54 days at a juvenile facility in Durango and two years’ probation.

Smith said the system worked “on a small level” but questioned whether the sentence was severe enough.

However, she said there were signs of support from the community. Members of the high-school football team brought a vehicle to drag the van home, and for days people came to her house to say how sorry they were.

Sherri Williams of Cortez told the commission she, too, had experienced racially based harassment. An African- American, Williams moved to Cortez from Denver 15 months ago to take a job with Southwest Memorial Hospital.

“My first day in this city, my house became a Parade of Homes,” she said.

“People were driving by slowly and stopping in the middle of the street.” That night, she said, her house was toilet-papered. “They left feces on the toilet paper,” she added. “What a welcome that was to Cortez.”

She said some of her neighbors also started a petition against her, but in response to questions from the commission, she said she hadn’t actually seen the petition and did not know whom it was to be presented to.

Williams said she was determined not to be intimidated into moving, but after hearing about Smith’s son, she became so unnerved she decided to stay indoors at night. She still feels too nervous to go out after dark.

“I’m a native of this state. I’m proud of this state,” she said. “But this city has a problem.”

However, she said members of a local church have been very friendly to her and she has had no problems getting service in local restaurants.

Both Smith and Williams mentioned that a local truck that used to drive around Cortez carrying a large Confederate flag contributed to the hostile atmosphere.

“I know it’s their right, but how welcome would you feel?” Smith asked.

It was an incident involving that very truck that prompted the Civil Rights Commission to schedule its visit to Cortez and Durango.

On June 21, 2004, 18 students from Dillard University in New Orleans and the University of Colorado in Boulder were visiting Cortez as part of an exchange program.

CU Professor Michael Grant, the faculty leader for the program, came along on the trip, as did Professor Robert Collins of Dillard. Grant gave the Civil Rights Commission an account of the incident.

The group arrived in a bus and checked in at the Turquoise Motel on Main Street, he said. Around 11 p.m., about a dozen students, half of them African-American, decided to walk along Main to Wal-Mart. On the way, they encountered the truck with the Confederate flag.

“They were subjected to extreme verbal harassment, racial epithets and aggressively threatening behavior,” Grant said. “It was extremely traumatic to the young men and women.”

The two men in the truck reportedly drove across a sidewalk to confront the visiting students, who flagged down a passing law officer. Police later drove the students back to their motel.

“Fifteen months later, as far as I can tell, the perpetrators have received no sanctions,” Grant said.

He noted that the Cortez City Council had sent a letter of regret, but contrasted the city’s response to that of Boulder, which had a similar incident involving “drive-by, lean-out-the-window racial epithets and a physical confrontation.”

In Boulder, people donated several thousand dollars for the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator. The offender was found and jailed, Grant said, and the city council allocated $10,000 for a group to improve racial relations.

Collins, who’d traveled from New Orleans and remarked that “it’s nice to be somewhere dry,” agreed. He said, while he and the students would have liked to have seen criminal charges filed, they would be satisfied to know that a final report was made.

Police Chief Roy Lane said his department had put extra patrols at the motel that night. The incident was thoroughly investigated, he said, including obtaining written statements from the students and sending an investigator to CU to do interviews.

Investigators presented a report to the District Attorney’s office so then- DA Joe Olt could decide whether to file charges. Current DA Jim Wilson said he did not have the report because Olt had decided not to pursue the case. Wilson said sometimes a case isn’t strong enough to take to court.

At the time, the two local men told the Cortez Journal’s Katharhynn Heidelberg that the visiting students had yelled at them first. They said they saw the Confederate flag as a symbol of being a rebel, not a racist.

Annabelle Talk, a Ute Mountain Ute, told the commission that racism is an everyday thing for tribal members.

“I hear remarks like, ‘The Ute people are too lazy and they don’t want to work,’ and that’s still going on today.”

She said her brother, an alcoholic who – like many other alcoholics – drank regularly in Cortez’s City Park, was beaten up by high-school kids in the park. She said her brother told her a police officer had come by and shooed the kids away, but didn’t arrest them.

Lane said his department takes such incidents seriously and does investigate them.

Talk said later that she thought the forum had gone well, but she found it ironic that most of the people who came to speak about racism were originally from other areas.

“It took outside people to come into this area to say what they had to say about how racism is in this community,” she said. “The tribe has talked about that many times to the school board and the police department and even the city and county people.

“I guess this makes it more true. It wasn’t coming from us again. It was from different people.”

Published in October 2005

Battling racism in the Four Corners: Diversity boosts economy, expert states

October 17, 2005
Jim Mimiaga

 

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A vibrant city economy depends on positive community attitudes toward ethnic diversity, advised officials with the U.S. and Colorado Civil Rights commissions at a Fort Lewis College forum Sept. 23.

Communities that indicate intolerance or a predisposition towards religious, cultural or ethnic prejudice hurt their chances of attracting new industry and suffer a lower tax base, said John Dulles, the regional director for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

“When Qwest looked into moving their headquarters to Colorado Springs, the many technicians from culturally diverse backgrounds reported a cold reception when looking for homes and checking out potential neighborhoods. The result? The c o m p a n y pulled out.”

Dulles said a similar situation happened in Fort Collins when Hewlett Packard’s computer staff, many of Eastern descent, also felt unwelcome when trying to relocate there.

“When stories like these make headlines in the Wall Street Journal as they have, it creates negative publicity for these towns and cities, and that’s something prospective companies remember,” he said.

In Pueblo, said Ester Belen, a Durango High Latino educator on the forum, 47 percent of the community is Hispanic, but the courtesy of adding additional signage in Spanish was never done, creating a feeling of isolation for newcomers and locals.

“It seems so simple, but not adding that dual-language signage in public places sends a message that is not welcoming to immigrants arriving who are trying hard to adjust to a new country and become informed.”

She said racism is often the “elephant in the room that people don’t talk about because it is too painful.”

“How much are you sharing your community with others? That right there says a lot about a community.”

Lack of receptiveness to Native American populations in schools hurts border towns like Cortez and Durango as well, said Art Neskahi, a Native activist working to raise awareness of racism towards A m e r i c a n Indians in the Four Corners.

“Cortez has 22 percent Native Americans but only one or two teachers who are Indians. More effort is needed to improve education for Native kids who need it, not just the exceptional ones who are going to college anyway.”

Jackie Fisher, a District Re-1 Board member, said the Montezuma-Cortez High School now has an elective class about Southwest archaeology and another native-culture class is planned for next year.

She said sections of history books in early education focus on general Indian history, but establishing an elementary class more specific to local tribes such as the Navajos, Utes, and Jicarilla, “is a good idea. Early on is when diversity needs to be promoted.”

That’s because when Native American children leave the reservation to go to public schools, the cultural shift can be overwhelming. Ute leaders want a more concerted effort by public schools to teach younger students about local tribes’ history. Sharing that knowledge helps Indian children to feel more accepted in the classroom.

“I don’t think teachers know how to promote diversity dialogue as well as they could,” said Navajo Ricardo Nakay, a Fort Lewis student who found success at the college following many setbacks. “When racial incidents occur, the teachers don’t know how to react.”

He said law officers’ attitudes also show unwarranted suspicion. “I’ve been stopped six times by police in Durango “just for walking down the street,” said Nakay, who wears some traditional clothing daily. “When I walk into a store, I’m followed around. I would not move my family here after I graduate.”

Fort Lewis C o l l e g e President Brad Bartel said one priority of the school is to improve retention and graduation rates for Native Americans.

He said in primary schools, “the difference in reading and math scores between whites and non-whites is alarming.”

Encouraging the 700 Native American students at Fort Lewis to mentor those kids would make a big difference, he said.

Chris Paulson, a Durango schoolboard member, said the district has a “long way to go” in teaching children about local culture and history.

“How many of us know about relocation programs, the Trail of Tears, being punished for speaking Native languages, Native children being forced to have their hair cut off?” she asked. “The dominant culture does not know, and if that history is swept under the rug the kids are made to feel embarrassed and ashamed about their own culture.”

Mexican-American immigrants are prevalent in the Four Corners as well and often experience discrimination. Ryan Osbourne of Compañeros, a Durango human-rights group, reported that the Latino community feels more at ease thanks to a recent agreement by the Durango City Council establishing the town as immigrant-friendly.

The resolution, similar to one in Sante Fe, N.M., says that local police shall not actively team up with immigration enforcers to identify illegal immigrants who arrive to merely work for a living.

A study under way by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission shows that “bordertown discrimination against Native Americans is huge,” Dulles said. “It’s important for reservation citizens to tell their leaders what they face off the reservation.”

A human-relations committee is badly needed in Durango and Cortez, Dulles said. Such a board helps to defuse racial tensions and acts to deal quickly with racial incidents, including working with police to prosecute offenders.

“I remember in 1974 there was a triple murder in Farmington with racial overtones , so we were dispatched to investigate,” he recalled. “It was a very tense situation and a lot of the elected officials threatened us to leave. The editorials in the newspapers were very hostile.”

Thirty years later, the New Mexico city is more accepting of cultural differences, with public officials responding more effectively to quell racially motivated crime, he noted.

“I challenge the city councils of Durango, Cortez and Bayfield to move towards establishing a human-relations committee,” he said.

A healthy economy depends on resolving racial prejudice, he said. “In order to be an economic power, you must embrace diversity. There is a tie between minorities feeling comfortable, and economic success.”

Published in October 2005

Battling racism in the Four Corners: Perceptions of prejudice vary widely

October 17, 2005
GailDavidWendy

 

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Is Montezuma County a racist place? There seem to be as many opinions about the ugly issue as there are people willing to express them.

Caucasians aren’t likely to feel the sting of prejudice here, so they may comfortably assume it doesn’t exist. And minority people may sometimes misinterpret the unfriendliness of a few for the attitude of a majority.

But while there is disagreement over how widespread prejudice may be, most people admit it’s far from extinct in the Four Corners.

“Like everywhere in the world, there are racial problems here,” said Cortez Police Chief Roy Lane, “but I think it’s a small minority who cause the problems . . . and get all the publicity.

Lane’s department came under fire a year ago in relation to an incident that involved two young white men allegedly harassing visiting black and white college students on Main Street. Tensions over the episode bubbled to the surface again on Sept. 22 at a meeting of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in Cortez.

Lane said when racism results in criminal behavior, the incidents are thoroughly investigated – if they are reported in the first place.

“At the police department, we take it seriously,” Lane said. “We do investigate those things and we do charge when it’s chargeable.

“I think this county is made up of a lot of good people who don’t condone that sort of behavior.”

Mutual antagonism?

The incident that prompted the forum occurred June 21, 2004, when some college students from Dillard University in Louisiana and the University of Colorado at Boulder were allegedly menaced by local white youths flying a Confederate flag on their pickup.

Lane said evidence suggested the initial name-calling was mutual, but the local teenagers then used their pickup to block the sidewalk in front of the students.

“Were those kids scared? You bet they were and I don’t blame them,” he said.

“They were in a foreign part of the country – never been here before – and all of a sudden a pickup with a Confederate flag on it is following you.”

Fortunately, Lane said, police passing by responded and the students were given a ride back to their motel before any combat occurred.

“We happened to be there Johnny-on- the-spot, and there was never any physical contact,” he said.

The Dillard students, who were guests of CU under an exchange program, returned to Boulder the following day and a Cortez detective later went there to interview them.

“In (the detective’s) opinion, the kids were not as adamant about filing charges as the doctor (CU Professor Michael Grant, who had accompanied the students to Cortez) was,” Lane said, but the results of the investigation were turned over to former District Attorney Joe Olt, who ultimately decided not to file any charges.

However, Jim Wilson, the current DA, said at the civil-rights commission meeting that he would review the case.

Lane said no Cortez officer had been investigated or disciplined for mistreating a minority person during his tenure of more than 20 years. He said one cop had been fired for using excessive force, but that incident involved a white victim.

Lane said, as required by the state, his officers undergo diversity training annually. And, because there is a growing Hispanic population in the area, many of whom don’t speak English, his officers attend monthly Spanish classes to better communicate during traffic stops or other contacts.

Mostly white

At the civil-rights forum, attention was called to the fact that there is little Native American representation on the Cortez Police Department. Lane said of the 50 people in the department, two are Native American. Of his 28 officers, none are Native American and just two are female.

At the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office, there are two female patrol officers and two Hispanics, according to Sheriff Gerald Wallace, as well as several more Hispanics working in the detention center.

However, like Lane, he’s had no luck in recruiting Native American officers.

Qualified applicants prefer to work for the state patrol or the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which pay more, Wallace said. “They can make a ton more money than they would working for us,” he said.

Lane said he had personally encouraged Ute Mountain Utes to apply for patrol-officer positions, but he rarely gets any applications.

“There’s been a couple of people in Towaoc I’ve been interested in and I’ve asked them to come apply,” he said, “but they didn’t show up.”

A lack of diversity exists in positions of leadership around the area. All three Montezuma County commissioners are white males.

Town councils show a better picture. The seven-member Dolores Town Board has four women but no minorities. The Mancos Town Board has two women and two Hispanics; the Cortez City Council, also with seven members, has one woman and two Hispanics.

However, the boards of most of the area’s special districts, which handle everything from sanitation to water to fire departments, are overwhelmingly white and male.

Area school boards, too, are mostly white.

‘A xenophobic society’

But a reluctance by Caucasians to vote for people of color is not necessarily the main factor behind the shortage of minority faces on area boards. For whatever reason, women and minorities don’t often run in the first place.

At the civil-rights forum, Jackie Fisher, president of the Cortez Re-1 School District board, noted that four board seats are open in November and only three people – all incumbents – have opted to run for those slots.

“We would love to have representatives of a culturally diverse population on our board,” she said.

Arthur Neskahi, a Navajo who lives in Cortez, said there aren’t enough Native American role models in schools or government. He said part of the reason may be that Indians aren’t encouraged in school early on and don’t envision themselves in positions of leadership.

“We’re not seeing much progress in education,” he said. “There’s lots of federal dollars, but Native Americans are still scoring low.”

Mancos residents Wendy and Steve Davis, both white, said they have seen racial discrimination in local schools through the eyes of their two adopted children – a Native American daughter and an African-American son.

“When you adopt minority kids, you go into it knowing there are going to be troubles,” Wendy Davis said, “but you minimize them – you know you can overcome any of it and you’ll raise healthy, well-adjusted kids.”

But both children were bullied and denigrated repeatedly at school, she said, and little was done about it.

“One of the hardest parts was getting hit over the head so many times to the fact that it is a racist world . . . and a xenophobic society,” she said. “We have evidence of that in our culture every day.

“And you may say, ‘It’s no worse here than any place,’ but I don’t know if that’s even a valid issue.”

The pecking order

As a substitute teacher for the Mancos School District in the mid-’70s, she also witnessed considerable discrimination against other minority students as well, she said.

“Hispanic kids were tortured, beaten up, harassed at school,” she said. “I think that got better over the years, because (now) there are plenty of Hispanic kids who don’t get beat up.”

And it isn’t always white kids who show prejudice, she noted, explaining that she saw Native Americans treating blacks with contempt.

“Black is even a big deal for Indians to look down on,” she said. “There’s always that pecking order.”

And while her son, who has since graduated, had friends among the students and teachers, the racial incidents made his school days hell, and he transferred to Montezuma-Cortez High School for his junior year, she said.

“At least he could see other faces like his there,” she said.

One of the unfortunate facts about racism is that a single incident can be profoundly upsetting to the victim, even if most other people are treating him without prejudice.

“It certainly wasn’t everybody (harassing her children in school),” Davis said, “but how many does it take to make your life miserable? – especially when the system isn’t supporting you, or they (only) make noises like they are.”

She said she’d tried to get an antibullying program introduced into the Mancos curriculum, but school officials said it would have to be requested by the teaching staff and it never was.

A high-school sport

Steve Davis said in his son’s case, some of the students who tormented him were sons of “local power figures in this valley – the so-called popular kids – so it was hard for his friends to defend him in the face of that.

“(Our son) is a long-distance runner and he’d run all over this valley,” he said, “and a couple of times there were kids flying the Stars and Bars on their pickup and they’d go by him and fake like they were going to run him off the road, call him a nigger and stuff and keep on going.”

But there are hopeful signs, he said.

“I think in general it’s gotten quite a bit better for Native people in Cortez in the 32 years that we’ve lived here,” he said. “When we got here it was still pretty awful.” He said in some cases, Indians were even charged premium prices for some consumer goods.

“I saw that happen,” he said.

He added that violence against Native Americans was not uncommon. “Whacking drunk Indians was (like) a high-school sport in Cortez 30 years ago . . . no matter what anyone tells you.”

‘Don’t know how to work’

Annabelle Talk, director for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Employment Rights Office and a tribal member, said at the Sept. 22 forum that violence against drunk Indians continues to this day. But she said Native Americans also experience subtler forms of discrimination on a regular basis, particularly in some shops in Cortez.

“We don’t get the same treatment like a non-Indian might that was in front of you,” she said. “The clerk will say, ‘Hi, how are you?’ to the first person and when it gets to you they’re not friendly at all.”

Such treatment is insulting considering how much business Native Americans do in the city, she said. “We spend almost all our money in Cortez.”

Shopping in Farmington 80 miles away is a much more positive experience, Talk said, maybe because more Native Americans are clerks there.

She said there is also a form of prejudice that assumes Utes are by nature lazier than members of other tribes, such as Navajos.

“I deal with employers doing business on the reservation. Sometimes they say, ‘We have Ute people – they don’t know how to work, but Navajo people do.’ It’s just crazy. Maybe they had one person who didn’t work out and they’ve used that against our tribe for many years.”

As to why Utes don’t often run for the local school board – there is a district slot specifically allocated to represent the Towaoc area – she said they may fear being unwelcome. “If I was to run for the school board I would be afraid of that, not being accepted.”

But Talk acknowledged that Native Americans are sometimes the instigators of prejudice, not just its victims.

“There’s Indians who are prejudiced against other tribes,” she said. “It’s everywhere.”

Dukes of Hazzard?

Tomoé Natori, a Japanese native who has lived in the Four Corners for 15 years, said she would like to see more people of color move to the area. As a member of a group that is barely represented in Southwest Colorado (just 0.2 percent of the population in Montezuma County is Asian, according to 2000 Census Bureau data), she often feels like an outsider. Although Natori said she hasn’t generally been harassed because of her ethnic background, there were isolated incidents where she felt that people used racism as a vehicle to attack her personally.

“Racism is a way to make people feel dominant,” she said.

Simon Martinez, a Hispanic who was recently appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Cortez City Council, said he doesn’t believe the Four Corners area is necessarily more racist than anyplace else.

In regard to the alleged menacing of the black students, he said, it’s possible the young white men didn’t understand that the Confederate flag is a hateful symbol of slavery and racism for blacks.

“They see the ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ with the flag on their car – these kids probably don’t realize that flag stood for keeping slavery. They might have thought to themselves, ‘We’re Dukes of Hazzard!’ A lot of these children don’t know history.”

Martinez said he could not recall ever having experienced racial discrimination locally, though he’s lived in Cortez since 1979, except for a few years.

“I may go to a meeting and may be the only Hispanic or the only one of color, but it never bothered me. If it bothered them to see me there, I never really felt it.”

However, he said his father encountered prejudice.

“My father went to school down McElmo (Canyon),” Martinez said. “He could tell some stories. Back in the ’40s, he would get in trouble for speaking Spanish. When I started school, my parents would speak Spanish but when I’d walk in the room they’d stop, so it was total English for me. I wish now that I knew my native language.”

He said there may be more prejudice against Native Americans than against Hispanics. “In the town of Cortez there’s been that division between the Anglos and the Native Americans, more than the Hispanic race,” he said.

Martinez is operations manager at the Ute Mountain Utes’ Farm and Ranch Enterprise. He said people sometimes express surprise that the enterprise employs so many Native Americans. “When I tell people I use 70 tribal members, they say, ‘What, you do?’” They’re even more surprised to hear that tribal members are moving into management.

Prejudice is not the exclusive province of Caucasians, Martinez noted.

“I think everybody has a portion of prejudice in him, whether they know it or not, or realize it or say it,” he stated. “Whether it’s against the homeless – why is that guy in the park like that? – or against some other race – why is that person living there? Everybody does in their own way, but you’ve just got to be able to control it. It’s here. It’s everywhere.”

Published in October 2005

Donate to a great cause: the NFL

October 2, 2005
Janelle Holden

I’ve decided that the only hope for restoring civil society in this country is sports. Here’s why. Given that my parents, most of my family, and some close friends are big fans of the current president’s administration, sports is about the only thing I have to talk about these days.

Despite the adversarial tone of my columns on occasion, I really don’t like to argue. I like discussions where people say things like, “That’s a good point,” instead of, “You’re wrong.” Maybe that’s part of being a bleedingheart liberal, I don’t know.

But now that I’ve been both a conservative and a liberal during my lifetime, I would have to say that liberals are just more polite, most of the time. However, I broke that axiom last weekend when a friend and I got into a heated argument over who is responsible for the Hurricane Katrina disaster (besides Katrina herself, that is). The conversation devolved to a point that I’ve decided to no longer bring up politics, religion, guns, abortion, wolves, health care, education, personal safety, hurricanes, or anything else remotely controversial with people who don’t think like me.

So, outside of talking about cleaning my house, and what to do with my garden next year, I really only have sports to draw upon these days. Thus, I was very excited for the beginning of a new NFL season this year. Why worry about poor black people in Louisiana, when you have rich black athletes to worry about all over the country?

My husband and I are what you might call “avid” fans of the New England Patriots. This means that there is general depression and malaise after a loss, and self-satisfaction and delirium after a win. Soon the pharmaceutical companies will be making a pill for our disease, I’m sure. I love this team for allowing me to feel like a winner again during a political season where the words “liberal” and “loser” seem to go hand in hand.

However, my one tiny, itsy-bitsy complaint about sports, and sports players, is this belief that God has something, well really, anything, to do with them winning.

It’s irritating to me to see football players point to the sky after they make a touchdown, sack a quarterback, or dislocate someone’s jaw. I’ve never seen any of them point to the sky when they threw an interception or fumbled the ball and if God is involved in their successes, you’d think he was involved with their screw-ups too. No, you don’t see them giving God the credit during the bad times. It’s probably because God doesn’t want any bad public relations.

So sure, everyone is entitled to his or her personal beliefs and favorite sports teams, but I’m pretty sure that God doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) give a damn about sports.

I would hope that God would be much more concerned about the recent hurricane victims, or refugees, or evacuees, or whatever you want to call them. But given that hurricanes are considered “an act of God” one has to wonder just exactly what he is doing up there. As Jon Stewart put it, maybe instead of a National Day of Prayer, we should be holding a National Day of Railing against God – especially if your football team has a losing record.

Now, one might argue that God’s little hurricane act in Louisiana and football are closely tied together because the Superdome and the Astrodome, home to two of America’s NFL football teams, provided refuge for people in the hurricane’s path. What does this tell us? Well, maybe that God works in mysterious ways, and that there might be a greater purpose for football than I thought.

According to Jesus, his father is on the side of the poor and the downtrodden , never mind these little acts of his that flood these people’s homes, and we should all give up everything we own to help them, including our great big gas-guzzling SUV’s. I just wish I knew which agency to give it all up to. The Red Cross screwed up the 9- 11 donations and wasn’t visibly at the Louisiana convention center helping people out. The Salvation Army wasn’t trucking people out, and certainly my federal taxes seemed to be a waste.

So, I think, this year, my charitable contributions will be going to the NFL. For clearly, this organization provided the shelter that people really needed in a time of crisis. And if God really does care about football, I’ll have all of my bases covered.

Janelle Holden writes from Montana.

Published in janelle holden, October 2005

Rubbing shoulders with fame

September 30, 2005
Suzanne Strazza

I was going to use this month’s column to discuss something very serious and important – no more meaningless drivel, but I decided to nix that horrid thought and continue on my frivolous way. Something of great personal significance has suddenly come to my attention and I need to bring it out into the open.

All of my Us magazine reading has truly paid off: I’ve discovered that I actually know someone famous! I know George the Evil Pharmacist! I was soooooo in love with this man back in 8th grade when he was merely Roger Bart.

For you poor souls who do not know George (or Roger for that matter), George the Pharmacist is on ABC’s new wonder hit “Desperate Housewives.”

So what exactly was my relationship with this Hollywood (almost) Megastar? Aren’t you just dying to know?

I first discovered Roger shortly after he came to our school. He was on the soccer team with my older brother, Kent. One look at those skinny legs and Shaun Cassidy haircut and I was a smitten kitten. I was suddenly my brother’s biggest fan – never missed a game or even a practice.

When soccer season ended and everyone moved inside for the winter, we discovered another of Roger’s incredible talents. He was the lead singer in the rock band Saint Elmo’s Fire. Roger wore white jeans, white shirts and (if I remember correctly) a long skinny white scarf. He sang classics like “I Want You to Want Me.” Who could not fall in love with the guy? We all became groupies.

I was the irresistible one in the front row with the skinny legs, bad Dorothy Hamill haircut and a mouth full of braces. While most of the girls in eighth grade, ninth grade, 10th and 11th grades all had a crush on him, I had one up on all of them, the big-brother connection. Every day, I suggested that Kent invite his soccer team over, or that he take me whenever he went out with the guys. Needless to say, Kent never took me up on Option No. 2 and rarely on Option No. 1.

Still, I did always have an excuse to stop by the 11th-grade lockers supposedly to tell my much-loved, darling older sibling something extremely important, and to catch a glimpse of beautiful Roger’s beautiful smile. I occasionally even got a “Hey, Suzanne” out of him.

I honestly thought that I would finally snag Roger when he saw me in my cheerleader uniform (just don’t say a word about the whole cheerleading thing!). I was captain, you know, so my uniform was different and therefore carried more clout.

Remember the skinny legs and all? Imagine them in a blue-and-white polyester dress with saddle shoes. I knew that as soon as he saw me, Roger would fall down and kiss those black-and-white beauties and beg me to run off into the sunset with him.

What actually happened was a bit different. Yes, I sashayed down the hall, past the lockers, confident in my coolness. As soon as Roger saw me, he smiled and gave me the oh-someaningful “Hey, Suzanne” and I. . . slammed right into an open locker door.

Interactions such as these fueled my dreams and sustained me throughout the boredom and tedium of eighth grade.

I transferred schools at the end of that year and only saw Roger once or twice after that. I was sure that he pined for me for many years.

Until I heard that he was gay. Just add him to the growing list of men who realized that they prefer men after hanging out with me. (But, we’re not going to go there right now.)

So, you wonder, after a meaningful love like this, why didn’t I recognize Roger Bart as soon as I saw him on the screen? The reality is, I don’t watch TV. I just read the trashy mags. Essentially Nicole, Paris, Tom, the housewives, are all merely twodimensional to me. Until now. Now one of the beautiful people has come to life.

So, after years of reading People and Us, I actually do know someone famous – as opposed to pretending that I do. Who cares if he has no clue who I am? – I know who he is.

Suzanne Strazza writes from Mancos

Published in Suzanne Strazza

Better than the Golden Rule

September 22, 2005
David Feela

When I moved from Minnesota over 20 years ago to teach in the Cortez school system, I hoped my college had trained me adequately for the job of inspiring the youth of this community. After all, I had studied the classics, grammar, reading, writing, psychology, and public communication. I thought I was prepared. What I didn’t realize at the time was how little I knew about teaching.

Anyone can learn, but not everyone can teach. One spring toward the end of my first year of teaching, a neighbor pounded on the door of my trailer in the middle of the night. He pointed toward my truck.

“I heard some noises but by the time I came out, they disappeared,” he whispered, as if someone might still be listening. “You better call the police.” Slippered and sleepy, I went out to my truck. Three of my four tires had been slashed. They were flat as frybread. I went back inside and called the police. A patrol car showed up in 10 minutes and an officer examined the scene. No other vehicle in the trailer court had reported or received any damage. My truck wasn’t the victim of an act of random violence; I had been singled out. I was being taught a lesson. The police officer filled out a report and I signed it. Through the window I watched as he slowly drove around the trailer court with his spotlight. I went back to bed, a little depressed, a little angry. Nothing could be done until morning. And by morning all I could do was laugh, because during the wee hours, after the police had left, the person responsible for slashing three of my tires had come back to slash the fourth. I stood in the driveway and marveled at my first teaching success: I had inspired at least one of my students to complete his work.

Since that first year I have learned how to laugh more often. Really, I had no choice. I’m surprised my college professors didn’t study laughter, and I’m astounded that competency exams for prospective teachers and standardsbased testing for students have managed to take themselves so seriously. I thought about asking my teaching colleagues this spring if they could identify some aspect of their professional experience where standardbased performance outcomes could be readily translated into life experiences. Then I changed my mind and asked if they could offer any fresh perspectives on the Jeff Foxworthy redneck jokes from their years of experience in the classroom. Here’s what I got.

You might be a teacher if:

  • In public places you glare at a misbehaving child instead of looking away like every other bystander.
  • You can’t afford to send your own kids to college but you’ve helped hundreds of other students get there.
  • You’re always mentally taking attendance at social functions.
  • You correct the grammar on a letter from your mother.
  • You’ve been turned down for jury duty because both lawyers, the plaintiff, defendant, and judge were all ex-students.
  • Your taxes help pay your salary.
  • You get your first actual cost-of-living raise after you retire.
  • You go to garage sales for school supplies.
  • You know at least seven ways to misspell an easy name like Kathy.
  • Your glasses are thicker than your wallet.
  • Your idea of foreplay is a full stapler and a fresh bottle of white-out.
  • Over 15 percent of your vocabulary is made up of acronyms.
  • You leave the house and ask yourself, Did I leave no child behind?
  • You’re still reading this.

Summer’s over; school’s in session. Be careful at crosswalks and laugh when you get the chance. It’s your homework, for the rest of the year.

David Feela teaches English at Montezuma-Cortez High School.

Published in David Feela

Wild horse roundup judged a success

September 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

Wild-horse advocates and BLM officials alike were pleased by the success of a wild-horse adoption that took place Aug. 27 in Montezuma County.

“As far as placing these animals, getting them all adopted, the auction went very well,” said Pati Temple, a member of the National Mustang Association’s Durango chapter. “Every single one was adopted – you can’t beat that.” The horses – mustangs with Thoroughbred and Morgan blood, all from the Spring Creek Herd Management Area in the Disappointment Valley northwest of Dolores – were rounded up Aug. 21 with the aid of cowboys and a helicopter.

LONE CONE ROAD

The roundup proceeded swiftly and with relatively little trauma to the horses, observers said.

“We saw a real difference from what happened just five years ago in the last gather,” said Jamie Sellar-Baker, associate field manager for the Dolores Public Lands Office. “These things are dynamic. We’re learning all along and we’ll be able to do an even better job next time.”

The roundup, the first for the Spring Creek herd since 2000, was conducted because BLM officials said the total of 93 adult horses and numerous foals was too much for the arid, 22,000-acre area to sustain.

The BLM is the agency responsible for managing most of the nation’s wild horses and burros. Ninety-one horses were originally gathered during the oneday round-up, 17 of them foals. Forty were turned loose back to the wild, according to Sellar-Baker, including one particularly handsome steel-gray stallion familiar to observers of the Spring Creek bands.

Another 21 — wet mares with foals, and horses older than 5 — were sent to Cañon City to a special training facility where older horses can be worked with before being made available for sale, a process slightly different from adoption.

That left 30 horses for the auction at the Montezuma County Fairgrounds, which drew a steady stream of onlookers and potential buyers. They ambled past the pens where the horses were separated into groups, placing silent bids on the ones that struck their fancy. The horses huddled as far from the people as they could get in the small pens, shy and skittish. But wild-horse lovers in the crowd swapped tales of mustangs they had adopted and gentled that turned out to be as affectionate and loving as puppies — and smart and spirited to boot.

“They’re just special,” Temple said. She said the round-up went as smoothly as could be hoped, and praised the BLM for its work publicizing the adoption.

However, she believes more could be done to reduce stress for the sensitive animals and help them stay uninjured.

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One such measure would be keeping family bands together. Horses join in small, tightly knit groups with one stallion as the leader. The social structures are extremely important, Temple said.

“Keep the family band together all the way up to and including the adoption,” she said. “Then fighting won’t happen. Manage these horses according to their psyche.”

Horses pushed into pens with unfamiliar animals often fight, sometimes causing injuries. Several of the horses at the adoption had nicks or cuts, two had abscesses, and one had a swollen knee, Temple said.

“If the family unit is together, it means less stress,” she said. Sellar-Baker agreed that would be a good idea, but said it’s difficult to carry out. “When they’re rounded up, the bands get mixed together,” she said. “It takes a lot more time in the air (for the helicopter) to bring them in in individual bands.

“It would increase the gather costs and time, so there are pros and cons.” However, she said it was something that Bob Ball, the BLM natural-resource specialist responsible for overseeing the herd, wanted to consider.

Temple also urged the BLM to use better corral panels without sharp edges. It was a kick to one of the panels that apparently caused the worst incident of the round-up.

The incident took place the evening of Aug. 26 when a widely respected trainer brought in by the National Mustang Association, Tim McGaffic, was conducting a public demonstration of low-stress methods of gentling wild horses. But the young stallion he selected was extremely nervous, according to observers, and whacked his leg against a panel. He then began hobbling on three legs.

A subsequent demonstration with a wild filly went smoothly.

The next day, when the stallion still would not put pressure on the forefoot, he was X-rayed and found to have a spiral fracture to a pastern bone. He had to be euthanized. “At least we spared him a six-hour ride to Cañon City,” Temple said.

Temple said the spiral fracture might have indicated the horse had a previous injury. It would have been difficult for it to sustain such a fracture from merely kicking a panel, she said, and other observers agreed the blow did not seem severe.

Sellar-Baker said she didn’t witness the event and knew only that the horse didn’t come up lame until after the training. “He seemed sound when we rounded him up,” she said. “It’s hard to say” if he had an older injury.

Temple also said she would also like to see the NMA work with the BLM to train volunteers who could, upon request, go to the homes of people considering adopting mustangs and tell them whether their corrals, stable and equipment were suitable. “We could avoid mistakes and trauma for the horses and people,” Temple said.

“We use volunteers in many other capacities,” Sellar-Baker said. “It’s definitely worth exploring.”

Temple also urged that the BLM consider injecting gathered mares with aminocontraceptives that would keep them from bearing foals for a year or more. That could reduce the number of round-ups and help keep the animals wild.

Sellar-Baker said that’s also worth considering. “This is in its infancy for a small herd like these,” she said. The drawback might be that, if sickness or drought wiped out much of the herd, it would be several years before it could rebound.

Sellar-Baker said local officials appreciate the association’s help and suggestions. “Having groups like the NMA helps us a lot,” she said. “They keep up with new ideas like this, and we explore what they bring to us.”

All 30 horses at the auction were adopted, except the one who had to be euthanized and a 4-year-old stud taken to Cañon City to be gelded and then adopted. The highest bid was $675; the minimum bid was $125. The BLM estimated that the adoption brought in about $6,000, based on the average adoption price of $227. The money goes to help defray horse-transportation costs.

The Spring Creek herd is now down to 45, 10 of them foals, which is within the range of numbers the BLM considers optimal.

Wild-horse advocates, however, say mustangs should get a little more room on the nation’s ranges. Currently there are approximately 37,000 wild horses on public lands compared to 4 million cattle and sheep, and the BLM is looking at cutting the total number to 28,000 and eliminating one of Colorado’s four wild herds.

Herds are often so small they cannot sustain genetic diversity, which requires at least 150 animals. With the Spring Creek herd, the BLM periodically has to bring in wild mares from other areas to provide fresh bloodlines.

Horse advocates also remain upset over a rider to last year’s appropriations bill that specified that mustangs over 11 or those that fail three times to be adopted should be sold for any purpose, including slaughter [Free Press, June 2005]. A public outcry caused the BLM to shut down its sales temporarily after it was learned that 41 horses had been resold and slaughtered at an Illinois meat-packing plant.

Francis Ackley, the BLM’s wild-horse program leader for Colorado, said several months ago the BLM placed restrictions on the bills of sale for mustangs that provide criminal penalties for anyone knowingly buying a wild horse for slaughter or reselling it to someone else planning to slaughter it. Since then, Ackley said, the sales program has slowed quite a bit.

Horses that can’t be sold go to long-term holding facilities.

Ackley said he did not believe any of the horses sent to Cañon City from the Spring Creek herd are in danger of the slaughterhouse. Only one is over 11, he said, and that palomino stallion is probably going to be sold to a person planning to keep it with his mare.

Ackley added that the BLM in Colorado is trying not to remove the older horses from the range in the first place. “We were able to do that with the Spring Creek herd, and that’s good,” he said.

Published in September 2005

Who owns the Dolores River? Tips for rafters and landowners

September 17, 2005
James Preston

“In the end, all things merge into one; and a river runs through it.” — Norman MacLean

Property Owners and Nature Lovers: Who owns the Dolores River?

ANSWER: No one owns the Dolores River. The Dolores was a navigable river when Colorado became a state in 1878. It is known as a river of “navigable waters of the United States.” The U.S. Supreme Court has declared such rivers to be “public highways.”

Property Owner: But I have a deed that says I own my property to the middle of the Dolores River. Doesn’t that mean that I have absolute ownership in my property, including the river?

ANSWER: You cannot own a navigable river, or even part of a navigable river, any more than you can own an interstate highway or the Brooklyn Bridge. If you believe that someone sold you a part of the Dolores River then you should not attempt to make a living at “horse-trading.” The Dolores is very much like an interstate highway. The U.S. government has absolute authority over the waters in the river. The State of Colorado owns the land underneath the river. The State owns the land in “public trust.” It cannot give ownership in the land under the river to anyone, except, the State can give it back to the United States government.

Nature Lovers: Since it is a public highway, can’t I go across a property owner’s land to get to it so I can use it?

ANSWER: You may not go across a private property owner’s land to access the river. You must use public accesses only. If you go across private land you are trespassing and are committing a crime

Property Owner: Where can I put a fence to keep nature lovers away from my property while they are using the river?

ANSWER: You cannot put a fence (or any other obstruction) across or in the river. You might be allowed to put a fence along the river if you have written permission of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Only the Secretary of the Army has the authority to determine the location of the river with regard to anything permanent which may obstruct the river or anyone using it. (This is for reasons of national defense and national security).

Nature Lover: If there are no signs or fences, can I leave the river, temporarily, to do something on dry land?

ANSWER: You may use dry land in the river channel. You may not use private land next to the channel on either side. The river is not just the water that we see. It is also the channel which carries the water. In the spring, with high water, the river fills the channel and you can float in or on the water up to the high-water mark. In low-water time, you may use the water in the river and you may also use the public land that is dry in the channel.

Property Owners and Nature Lovers: What do we do about people who are violating our rights regarding the river?

ANSWER: Property owners could understand that Nature Lovers have a right to use the river for such things as fly-fishing, rafting, canoeing, boating, swimming and other “traditional maritime activities.” Property owners could also understand that they have a right to enjoy the beauty and amenities of property next to the river. However, with those rights come responsibilities to be tolerant of others who have equal rights to use and enjoy the river. Nature lovers could take a lesson from hunters and fishermen. For centuries, they have sought the permission of private landowners to enjoy and recreate with respect to private land. It is far better for everyone to ask permission than to create situations in which it is necessary to ask for forgiveness. This is the law of good sense.

Property Owners and Nature Lovers: I’ve heard that courts in this state have ruled that private property owners can exclude nature lovers from rivers. What is going on?

ANSWER: State courts do not have the authority to determine rights regarding “navigable waters of the United States.” State courts may only determine rights regarding small streams that were not navigable when Colorado became a state. State courts that are making these decisions regarding navigable rivers are mistaken. State courts are not aware that the international laws of “Admiralty” control all navigable waters, from the “high seas” to rivers such as the Dolores. No one state controls the laws of navigable rivers.

State courts declaring private ownership in navigable rivers, or excluding anyone from a navigable river, may need a reminder from the U.S. Supreme Court, or one of the U.S. courts underneath it, that the laws governing the Dolores River, and all rivers like it, must be in harmony with the laws of the Sovereign United States of America.

Property Owners and Nature Lovers: What can we do to ensure our best use of the Dolores River?

ANSWER: If there is enough interest, the Free Press will sponsor a forum about being good neighbors on the river. E-mail your interest in this forum to: freepress@fone.net

James Preston has a post-doctoral degree in international law (the law of sovereignty) from New York University. He was admitted to practice, in person before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991.

Published in September 2005

Replacing the pick and hoe

September 17, 2005
Carolyn Dunmire

Dove Creek over the Fourth of July holiday observed its 50th anniversary this year.

Pick ’n’ Hoe celebrates the uranium miners and bean farmers of the Dove Creek area. Who are the workers that will be celebrated 50 years from now, and which resources will they be developing?

LONE CONE ROAD

The economy of Southwest Colorado is shifting from traditional land-based resources such as logging, mining, and agriculture to a service/tourism base. What are the resources that support this new economy? And could they explain some of the recent demographic trends that the area is experiencing, such as “amenity migration”?

Instead of people moving here for a mining job or to return to the family farm, people are immigrating because this is an affordable place to live — and beautiful to boot. Scenic beauty and world-class recreational opportunities have become more than a side benefit of life in Southwest Colorado — they are actually drawing people to the area much as uranium mines and farmland once did.

Now, for the first time in our history, we must manage our land use and development to preserve and protect these resources or our community may not have cause to celebrate them in the future.

From picks and hoes to TDRs

As these new resources have very different characteristics than ore deposits or farmland, developing and managing them requires different tools than a pick or a hoe.

Existing land-use planning and zoning regulations can protect some of these resources by limiting the types of development allowed in certain areas.

However, scenic beauty and recreation are not usually listed as specific land uses worthy of protection. The closest local regulations come to that is provisions in land-use codes that protect a landowner’s “solar access” and prevent a neighbor from building a tall structure that would shade surrounding properties. So new tools had to be created to manage these new resources.

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Transferable Development Rights (TDRs) limit development in the Dolores River Valley and will help to preserve those sweeping riparian vistas. Conservation easements held by Montezuma Land Conservancy preserve agricultural land uses and the pastoral views area residents have grown to love.

The local bike club and gun club are working together to manage state and federal land to accommodate a shooting range and mountain-bike trails.

Community-based planning groups such as the McPhee Recreation Plan Committee and the Dolores River Dialogue are evaluating water-recreation resources.

This diverse set of efforts has one common theme – they are all grassroots, community-based initiatives that were instigated jointly by concerned residents, landowners, and government officials.

“Bringing a diverse group of interests together can create polarization,” said Mike Preston, Montezuma County Federal Lands Program coordinator and the facilitator for many of these community planning groups.

“However, if you get them working to find and protect common interests, they will discover innovative solutions together.”

Preston has found that the key to using a community-based approach for resource management is to include the whole spectrum of interests and ideas in the process. He said diverse working groups have several advantages:

  • They get people talking who would normally not interact.
  • They allow new ideas, alliances, and common interests to unfold so that participants can discover innovative solutions.
  • They build a strong base of support for the resulting recommendations or solutions.

Saving the Dolores River Valley

An example of community-initiated planning that resulted in an innovative solution for protecting scenic beauty as well as water quality is the Dolores River Valley Working Group.

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The group was made up of concerned landowners in the Dolores River Valley who spent most of 2003 searching for a way to manage development in the valley while keeping agriculture and protecting property rights for landowners.

Although the members considered amending county zoning regulations, according to Preston, who facilitated the group, “Zoning was rejected because variances could adjust desired land-use patterns and would not necessarily compensate landowners for preserving scenic beauty and nondevelopment.”

After more than a dozen meetings, the group decided on a solution that met most of their common interests and allows development in the river valley: the use of Transferable Development Rights.

The working group developed a plan that provided one development right per 10 acres in the valley. In other words, a single home could be built on 10 acres; someone who owns 50 acres has the right to five homes, and so on.

If someone owns more land than he wants to develop, he can sell (transfer) the development rights to someone else. Thus, a person with 100 acres could theoretically sell 10 TDRs. That would mean the original landowner could not then develop those 100 acres, but the buyer could put 10 additional homes on his land.

Fundamentally, TDRs cap development in the Dolores River Valley at an average of one home per 10 acres. TDRs protect scenic beauty in the valley by compensating landowners who choose not to develop their property but rather to preserve the existing open viewscape. They also help keep farmers and ranchers because they create another asset that can be traded or sold if they keep their land in agricultural production.

TDRs became part of the Montezuma County Land-Use Code in 2003.

Donating scenic beauty

Landowners in Montezuma and Dolores counties have been voluntarily preserving scenic beauty since the late 1990s by donating conservation easements to the Montezuma Land Conservancy.

Nina Williams, co-director of the MLC, has found that “voluntary land conservation is a good fit in our community because is it not regulatory, it respects private property rights by keeping conserved lands in private ownership, and the land stays on the tax rolls.”

Chuck McAfee, a Montezuma County landowner who donated a conservation easement on his family’s acreage, recognizes easements as a way “to maintain and nurture the preservation of agriculture and open space in the region.”

Williams explained that a conservation easement is a contract between a landowner and qualified easement holder such as a land trust or other organization like the Rocky Mountain Elk foundation that conserves land in perpetuity. The easement specifies permitted uses and restricted uses on the property.

For example, the easement might specify that the property could not be subdivided or that no roads could be built. Rather than transfer development rights to another property, conservation easements extinguish development rights to protect conservation values such as farm and forest land, scenic open space and natural habitat.

No two conservation easements are alike, and the specific details depend on the landowner’s interests and the physical characteristics of the property. As a charitable donation, conservation easements have state and federal tax benefits for the landowner. The value of the donation is appraised according to the difference in the value of the property if it could be developed and the value if it cannot.

In Colorado, landowners who donate conservation easements receive an income-tax credit based on the value of the donation. As this can result in a sizable tax credit that may be larger than the landowner could use, the state allows landowners to sell this tax credit to other individuals or businesses looking for a tax break.

A $4.5 million grant

At the end of 2004, MLC had assisted landowners with almost 5,000 acres in donated conservation easements. But, as Williams observed, “As a relatively undeveloped region of Colorado, there is a unique opportunity in Montezuma and Dolores counties to protect prime properties, not just what is left over after development.”

This opportunity was recognized by Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), which recently granted MLC $4.55 million as part of a larger grant designated for land conservation and recreational improvements along the scenic 236-mile San Juan Skyway.

The MLC plans to leverage the GOCO grant to acquire conservation easements on properties in the Dolores and Mancos River valleys that have important riparian habitat and good agricultural land, and are adjacent to public land or private land with development restrictions on it.

The GOCO grant has expanded the MLC’s options for acquiring conservation easements to include purchase rather than relying solely on donations. Currently, the conservancy is in negotiations with five landowners regarding conservation easements with a total value of approximately $11 million.

The GOCO grant will only bring the MLC halfway to the potential purchase price. The conservancy plans to raise matching funds to make up part of the deficit and to work with the landowners to purchase the easements at “bargain” prices. In essence, even with the GOCO grant, the landowners will be donating a good part of the conservation easement.

“MLC is a quality partnership between its members and landowners,” Williams said. “Landowners give a great gift to the community when they donate their conservation easements and MLC members support this work through annual contributions.”

World-class recreation

The Four Corners area is blessed with a multitude of recreational opportunities, including hiking, skiing, biking, fishing, and boating. Just as some ore deposits are richer than others, there are rich deposits of world-class recreation in this area.

World-class, in this case, refers to recreational opportunities that are considered among the best in the world because of difficulty, uniqueness, scenic beauty, or proximity to population centers.

There are several major mountainbiking areas in Montezuma County, and the Dolores River and McPhee Reservoir offer high-quality water recreation. Like scenic beauty, these resources are being developed and managed by partnerships between local recreation groups and federal, state, and local land managers.

Phil’s World

Moab isn’t the only place on the Colorado Plateau with world-class mountain-biking. The greater “Dolorezuma” area with single-track trail systems such as Phil’s World, Sand Canyon, and Boggy Draw is consistently listed in the top mountain-biking destinations for Colorado and the Southwest.

Why would anybody ride their bike at a place called Phil’s World? Because, according to a review in singletracks.com, “There is nothing exceptionally technical, just really fast and fun. . . This is a great track, and more than worth the drive from Durango.” And if you peruse the license plates on the vehicles parked at Phil’s World on a warm spring weekend, riders are coming from a lot further than Durango.

Phil’s World trails are located on land managed by the Colorado State Land Board and BLM. The Kokopelli Bike Club, a local mountain-bike club headed by Dani Gregory, holds the recreation lease on the State Trust Land and is responsible for fencing and maintaining this area.

How did a small-town bike club come to hold the lease on a premiere mountain-bike property? By working with the gun club, of course.

Guns, rims, and steel

Shooting and cycling are not normally considered compatible uses for land unless you are experimenting with some new form of biathlon.

But that isn’t the case with Phil’s World. Located at the base of the popular mountain-biking area is the shooting range for the Four Corners Rifle and Pistol Club, another State Trust Land leaseholder.

According to Gregory, one key to the bike club’s success in obtaining a State Trust Land lease and creating a safe, “fast and fun” trail system was the members of the bike club who are also members of the gun club.

“They acted as liaisons between the groups and allowed us to understand the lease boundaries and how we could cooperate to best manage the land for both uses,” she said.

Gun-club and bike-club members worked together on routing the mountain- bike trails and fencing the shooting- range boundaries to create the necessary buffer zones between the two.

As neighboring leaseholders, the bike club and gun club have similar interests in seeing that State Trust Land is well-maintained and respected so both recreation uses can continue.

The Kokopelli Bike Club also works with the U.S. Forest Service and BLM to develop and maintain the other mountain- bike trail systems in the area that are on federal lands, such as the Boggy Draw area north of Dolores. The club helped with trail-mapping for the Boggy Draw Trails Project and commented on the management plan.

“We have tried to eliminate the ‘us versus them’ attitude when working with government planners,” Gregory said. “We are lucky to have some really talented people in the region and they are doing the best they can with very limited planning resources.”

The future of water recreation

Two groups, the McPhee Recreation Planning Committee and the Dolores River Dialogue, are working hard to come up with ideas for developing sustainable water recreation.

Economic-development reports for Montezuma County nearly always include a recommendation concerning the “under-developed water recreation resource” at McPhee Reservoir, the second- largest reservoir in Colorado. The McPhee committee set out to address the situation.

According to its recommendations report, the MRPC is “a collaborative group of public land and resource agencies, citizens and local governments working to improve recreation on and around McPhee.”

The group’s primary goal is to “ensure that a viable marina is operating at McPhee.” By pooling resources, the MRPC funded a marina feasibility study completed by a national consulting firm and is working to implement those recommendations as well as the group’s.

The Dolores River Dialogue started as a roundtable discussion group with representatives of every conceivable water interest, including the Dolores Water Conservation District, which manages McPhee Dam and the associated irrigation project, other irrigation companies, the state water board, wildlife managers, federal land managers, recreation groups, environmental groups, and other government officials.

The group agreed to a “Plan to Proceed” that creates two research groups that are considering water availability and scientific analyses for options to improve environments in the Dolores River downstream of McPhee. These research efforts are nearly complete, and the DRD will be exploring options later this year.

New party games?

With all these new resources being discovered, it may be time for some new events at local celebrations. Escalante Days features both a chainsaw competition and a mountain-bike race. Who knows? Maybe the 51st Pick ’n’ Hoe celebration will include a photo contest.

Carolyn Dunmire is a resource economist who has been part of the community for 10 years. A resident of Dolores County, she is a member of the DRD representing local boaters.

Published in September 2005

Lone cone access

September 17, 2005
Art Goodtimes

LONE CONE ACCESS … The threat of 100 homes is real, from the folks who closed off traditional access to the west side of Lone Cone and all the national forest lands up in that region, as the Free Press reported in last month’s opinions. But the story is a bit more complicated. And there’s more to learn than going slow on land swaps … Turns out that access route had been used for close to 50 years by citizens of all stripes in accessing the Lone Cone area from Norwood — hunters, snowmobilers, hikers, birders, peak-baggers, jeepers, mushroomers, etc. In fact, San Miguel County has been receiving state Highway Users Tax Funds for about 30 years for County Road 40-J, as we knew it … However, the State Land Board sold its part of the road to some rich folks, who promptly closed the well-known access route (which shows up on most Forest Service maps as public right-of-way). So here we had one state agency failing to recognize the 30 years of public monies that another state agency had put into this public road (no wonder we’re in such a financial mess at the state level, right?) … But just because one state hand doesn’t know what the other is doing doesn’t help the locals. Or San Miguel County, which is spending thousands of dollars in trying to reclaim Norwood’s traditional access to its totem peak — Lone Cone … Oh, sure, there is an alternate Jeep road to the region, which takes an hour or more longer, and is impassable in wet weather. May as well just call the whole west side of the Cone a wilderness area with that kind of access. And, hey, maybe that wouldn’t be all bad … But San Miguel County is committed to trying to regain Norwood’s lost forest access for its citizens, if Dolores County will help us do so (at our expense) … Unfortunately, the Dolores County Planning Commission, siding with the property rights of rich landowners over the public interest of Norwood citizens, has recommended not to allow San Miguel County to invoke state statutes in regaining that access. Let’s hope Dolores County Commissioners are more receptive to the common good, and of preserving traditional hunting and fishing access to our public lands.

Published in September 2005

Common threads link Polish, Navajo weavers

September 17, 2005
Connie Gotsch

The flowers and geometric designs seem to dance off the rugs hanging in Farmington’s Downtown Center Gallery, the Farmington Museum’s newest exhibit space.

Some tapestries feature bold, bright colors. Others offer more subtle palettes: brown, gray and black. Some tell stories. Others simply please the eye.

An exhibit of local Navajo weavings? That might be expected, in this museum in the Southwest, but these are Polish Kilim rugs, brought exclusively to Farmington from the Central Museum of Textiles in Lódz, (pronounced Wootch) Poland.

The 43 tapestries, dating from the 18th to the 21st centuries, make up a show called “Woven Masterworks of Wool,” on display through Dec. 31. The rugs will hang nowhere else in the United States.

“It is absolutely unique to have Kilim rugs in Farmington,” said Paulina Kapuscinska, Polish consul for Culture, Science, Education, and Public Affairs in Los Angeles.

She came to Farmington when “Woven Masterworks of Wool” opened in July, to represent Poland and to recognize Navajo weaver Lucy Whitehorse. In 2003, one of Whitehorse’s rugs went to Lódz, as part of the Farmington Museum’s traveling exhibit, “Trees in a Circle: Navajo Weavings of Teec Nos Pas.”

Recognition to Whitehorse came in appreciation of the artistry of Navajo weavers, and because her rug was the largest in the exhibition.

How did a show of Navajo weavings make its way to Poland? Why did Polish Kilim rugs come to Farmington? The answer is complex. Weaving itself is the best place to begin. In 1905, trader Hamp Noel and his wife, Eva Foutz, started the Teec Nos Pas Trading Post in northwest Arizona. With local weavers, they developed rugs featuring bold patterns and intricate geometric figures.

Ninety-some years later, the Farmington Museum organized the exhibit “Trees in a Circle: Navajo Weavings of Teec Nos Pas” to document the evolution of these rugs, both in design and in construction.

The show became so popular, both at home and as a traveling exhibit, that in 2003 Farmington Museum Director Richard Welch offered it to the American Association of Museums for exchange for an exhibit from another institution, which the AAM would choose. Working with the U.S. State Department, the AAM contacted the Central Museum of Textiles in Lódz, and since Native American culture fascinates Europeans, the trade was on. The deputy director of the Central Museum, Marcin Oko, would bring Kilim rugs to the Four Corners. Navajo rugs would fly to Poland with Welch.

The Navajo rugs went first. Poles fell in love with them, and “Trees in a Circle” drew more than 7,000 visitors. To their surprise and delight, people discovered that Navajo and Kilim weaving had much in common. The Central Museum of Textiles’ director, Norbert Zawisza, wrote Welch exclaiming, “It has turned out that the Polish rugs and those manufactured by the Navajo Indians share… materials and technique, closely related compositions, motives, and ornamentation sequences.”

In addition, the similarities included both the use of horizontal looms, and strong Oriental influence in design. The commonalities in design come from the fact that both cultures had contact with the Orient.

“Traders showed Navajo weavers rugs from the region we call the Near East today,” explained Welch. “They asked the artists to make something similar.”

The artists responded by blending Oriental elements with patterns they had always used. Polish Kilim rugs got their Oriental influence in a more direct fashion.

“Poland is connected with the West and the East,” said Oko. “In the 16th Century, our king imported Old Testament tapestries from Paris.”

He started a craze. The nobility bought silk rugs from Europe, then Persia and Kazakhstan. Before long, middle-class Poles wanted tapestries, too. So did poor people, though neither group could afford imports.

The king ordered Polish nobles to set up weaving shops across the country, but particularly in Lódz, a textile center. Guilds, cloisters, and families began producing rugs with a linen warp and a woollen weft. Kilim weaving had arrived, in a blend of Eastern and Western patterns.

“Kilim is an interesting word.” Kapuscinska smiled wryly. “It comes from Turkish. Polish and Turkish culture exchanged, sometimes (through) wars and invasions. Sometimes we managed to trade.”

The nature of Lódz itself influenced rug-making. “It’s in the center part of Poland. In the 17th and 18th centuries lots of factories were run by Polish managers, Russian managers, Jewish managers, German managers.”

Kapuscinska made a stirring motion.

“(It’s) very much a melting pot of different cultures and natures.”

The original Kilims featured chevron designs in natural tones. Those are still common, but so are images of flowers and birds, in lots of colors.

Today, no one pattern can be called typically Polish Kilim. But like modern Teec Nos Pas rugs, Polish Kilims often balance geometrical designs with complex systems of outlined images.

Like Kilim rugs, Teec Nos Pas tapestries have undergone design and color changes in their hundred-year history. Muted tones dominated the early ones. Color appeared later. Today, Teec Nos Pas works feature rich color saturation. “Woven Masterworks of Wool” is “a fascinating look at different times and places,” Kapuscinska said.

“‘Trees in a Circle: Navajo Weavers of Teec Nos Pas’ is one of the most popular exhibits we’ve ever had,” remarked Oko.

In his letter to Welch, Zawisza wrote that the exchange shows how two cultures can find common themes.

“Distant in time and space, we still share something in spite of separate traditions,” he wrote.

Published in Arts & Entertainment, September 2005

Closed to the public

September 17, 2005
David Long

A simmering dispute involving private property rights vs. public good in San Miguel and Dolores counties is about to come to a boil after two years of wrangling.

The 2003 closure of a road traditionally used for access to the Lone Cone area – County Road 40J in San Miguel County, Forest Road 534 in Dolores County – has created hardship as well as hard feelings among both local users of the road and hunters from across the nation.

LONE CONE ROAD

The road was closed by the owners of a property it bisects, which formerly was state trust land and now is private.

Now, county commissioners in San Miguel and Dolores counties are pondering whether they should use the power of eminent domain to condemn the road and reopen it to the public.

For more than half a century the narrow, rugged road provided the most direct access to remote national-forest lands that are prime elk and bear habitat, and the arrival of out-of-state hunters had become an annual autumn ritual that provided a welcome boost to the economies of the surrounding small towns, especially Norwood, Nucla and Naturita.

“(Hunters) have been doing this year after year after year and I’ll tell you, that first year when they blocked that roadway, there were some irate hunters from all over the country complaining about it,” said Patrick McCoy, land and minerals specialist with the San Juan National Forest. “We know, because we got the phone calls.”

McCoy explained that the road at issue is not part of the USFS road system area and therefore the agency has no position on the closure; however, 40J connects to a network of Forest Service roads that cover the area like a spider web. (Apparently the Forest Service made some attempt in the early ’90s to get an easement from the state on the now-disputed stretch of road, but at some point abandoned the effort.)

The road branches off the Dolores- Norwood Road, Forest Service Road 526, at a junction that is now marked with a sign warning that the road is closed 2.4 miles ahead.

Most of the route lies within San Miguel County, but a small portion, perhaps 1,800 feet, is believed to be within Dolores County.

The previous owner, Judy McCollum, acquired the school trust land, known as Section 16, through a property swap with the Colorado State Land Board, according to the board’s Southern District manager, Kit Page, in Alamosa. The land board manages a patchwork system of 3 million acres of public lands throughout the state.

What are state trust lands?

Colorado’s 3 million acres of state trust lands were granted to the state in 1876 by the federal government in order to support public schools and other such uses. Today, the lands are leased for ranching, mining, oil and gas extraction, and other purposes. Proceeds support some state functions, the largest of which is public education. An amendment to the state constitution passed by voters in 1996 changed the mission of the state land board from simply maximizing revenues on the state trust lands to providing “reasonable and consistent income over time.” It also mandated that the board emphasize long-term stewardship of state trust lands to keep their health.

The state got nearly 5,000 acres of land near North Mountain, formerly the TJ Bar Ranch, Page said, in return for the 640-acre section and about $4 million cash.

But no easement was ever recorded for the route, and public outrage over the barricaded road, particularly among Norwood residents, has prompted the San Miguel County Commission to take steps toward exercising eminent domain and reclaiming the road for public use – if no other solution can be found.

A survey determining the exact location of the road through what is now property of the Gray family, which is necessary for a legal description, is expected to be finished around Labor Day. That will clear the way for an appraisal of the roadway property and an offer to buy it from the Grays, who have stated publicly they will never sell it voluntarily.

If the owners remain adamant in their refusal, condemnation will be the only option left, officials say.

The survey was delayed because the owners refused to give the county permission to come onto the property, and it took months to get a court order. Past attempts to reach an accommodation with the owners have proven fruitless, but San Miguel County Commissioner Elaine Fisher said she wants to give negotiations another shot before becoming embroiled in a court action.

“We’re working toward reopening Road 40J . . . because we realize the economic benefit that road is to both counties that would like to have access to Lone Cone again through that area,” Fisher said. “I like to stay out of the courts if at all possible – I’m hoping we will resolve this to the benefit of everyone involved in a reasonable fashion.” What might such a solution entail? “You never know,” she said.

Fisher had no answer regarding why such discussions haven’t occurred during the two years since the barricades went up on the Gray property.

LONE CONE ROAD

“We just haven’t been able to talk about it – not because we haven’t made efforts,” she said. “We’ve had some difficulty getting the landowners to get on board with us, but our intent is to open that road again.

“We always thought it was a public road – at least it had been for decades on our road maps . . . so for us to find out we didn’t have public access was pretty shocking.”

(San Miguel County Commissioner Art Goodtimes addresses the situation in his column)

However, Page, of the state land board, has a different take on the conflict. Page said both the state land board and San Miguel County knew about the circumstances before the land swap was consummated.

“We were aware there was no easement for it (the road through the Gray property),” Page said. “We researched that on the exchange. I went up there several times before the trade, and we have nothing in our records that ever showed the public used it, and it certainly didn’t look like it (was being used) when I was up there.”

Page said a San Miguel County “road guy” stated at a public meeting that possibly two vehicles would use the road in a week.

“I don’t know what kind of information’s gone around, but this (trade) was published four times in the local newspaper,” he said, “and the National Forest, the Division of Wildlife and every other agency got a notice about it. San Miguel County, in fact, never mentioned this (lack of an easement) in their correspondence with their concerns about the exchange.

“They (county officials) were notified twice and they responded once with a letter before our board meeting (in which the decision was made).

They didn’t have any issues” except for wanting access to BLM land near the North Mountain property the land board would acquire, Page said.

“Probably a year after the exchange closed, then everybody got excited,” he said, “even though there is another road through the national forest that goes to the exact same spot below the Lone Cone,” Page maintained the alternate route, which is a Forest Service road, takes only 15 to 20 minutes longer than Road 40J, but supporters of reopening 40J insist the trip takes much longer and the road is in worse shape.

Closing the gap

“We’re certainly looking at all the options that are available,” said San Miguel Assistant County Attorney Kevin Geiger, “but the one we keep hearing about from our constituents – the citizens of Norwood – seems to be that this is the most appropriate route given the extensive public use of that route for 40 or 50 years.

“It’s only through a mile-and-a-half to two-mile section where the road is closed off that is really the obstacle here,” Geiger said. “We have a valid public-road claim that I don’t think is contested by the landowners for about two and a half miles up to that point and on the other side you’ve got national-forest land and a Forest (Service) road.

“So we’re really just trying to, if you will, re-establish public access through this gap portion.”

He said the state land board should have made certain an easement was established before making the land swap.

“Unfortunately, in our view, the state land board did not reserve a public easement across that section even though the public had been using (the road) for 40 or 50 years,” Geiger said.

He declined to speculate on whether eminent domain would be used to reopen the road.

“I can’t comment on where this may or may not be going,” Geiger said. “I know that San Miguel County and our citizens are greatly interested in attempting to reopen this road.

“We’ve attempted to negotiate with the property owner on several occasions (and) to date that has not been successful.

“Our board right now, they’re looking at possible acquisition,” he said, “but no decision on condemnation has been made yet.”

Life and death?

Norwood resident Craig Greager, who says he’d personally been travelling the road for 50 years (he’s 52), collected 140 signatures on a petition to reopen the road. He said the closure had adversely affected local businesses.

“The impact that I have noticed is hunters just not coming back to the area,” Greagor said. “They go to Monte Vista or somewhere over in that area.

“It’s impacted the economy quite a bit – it’s probably affected Dolores, Norwood, Nucla and Naturita just because people can’t use (40 J) any more,” he said. “The alternate route is in much worse condition and adds about three or four hours to the trip.”

He said that road isn’t fit for the trailers that hunters use to haul their ATVs and other gear, and this is another factor in discouraging them from hunting there.

But Page expressed skepticism about the economic harm.

“That’s pretty hard to believe,” he said. “Those hunters will find a way to go wherever they need to go.”

But it’s not just hunters who used the road to the western side of Lone Cone, Greagor said. “People from all over climb the Cone.”

He maintained the state had to be aware of the road situation before the land swap, since the Forest Service had raised the issue 15 years ago.

“The state land board definitely knew the road existed – it was on all the BLM maps, all the Forest Service maps,” he said. “The state land board is either totally ignorant or they did something under the table.

“I wrote the governor (Bill Owens) and said I wanted this thing investigated, but he won’t do anything about it,” said Greagor “He referred me to the state land board and they wrote back and said, ‘We’re sympathetic and hope it doesn’t happen again’.”

But the most important reason to reopen the road, he maintained, is to shorten the response time if someone needed medical assistance or a search and rescue had to be conducted in the Lone Cone area.

“That would shave three hours off a rescue effort,” he said. “It could definitely make the difference between life and death.”

Greagor said he believes the owners want to keep the area “a rich person’s playground,” where people pay thousands of dollars to bag an elk or bear.

Trophy-home sites

According to the Dove Creek Press, Todd Gray, manager of the ranch, said during a hearing of the Dolores County Planning Commission in July that if the road were reopened via eminent domain, the owners would respond by developing a subdivision of 100 homes on their land. He said the owners purchased the property specifically because it is secluded.

Gray did not return repeated phone calls from the Free Press.

Greagor said he didn’t believe the 100-home threat was real, but it would be a good thing if it happened.

“(The counties) would realize a very substantial increase in their propertytax base because they would be trophy- home sites for sure,” he said, “and also it would be good for the hunters because all that development would drive the animals up onto the national forest.”

The planning commission voted 2-1 to recommend the Dolores County Commission not exert its eminent domain authority in the matter, but Greagor said he believes the commissioners will reject that advice when they hold a hearing, because some of the planning- board members considered only the Grays’ private-property rights.

“I think the commissioners will take a different view – they’re going to look more at the public-safety aspect and how it will benefit the public the way its been doing for the last 50 years.”

Cooperate with adjoining counties

Dolores County Commission chairman Leroy Gore said, “From what I understand, yes,” when asked if he believes the road should be reopened.

Gore pointed out that only a small part of the section of the road in dispute – if any – is located in Dolores County, and said that part may actually be on Forest Service land.

“I was advised the other day that under the new survey our little bitty part of it may be Forest (Service land),” he said, “so we may not even be involved.” Still, Gore said if any part of the closed road is found to be in Dolores County, he will probably support the San Miguel commissioners if they exercise the condemnation option.

“I don’t see how we could not – we have numerous roads we work together on,” he said. “For that amount of road you would not want to create discontent – you’ve got to cooperate with your adjoining counties.

“I don’t know where we’d have the right, if they used (eminent domain) to open several miles of it, for us to shut it down for a few hundred yards.”

One way or the other

San Miguel County Commissioner Vern Ebert said county residents are “overwhelmingly behind us” in reopening the road.

“Once we have the survey, unless there’s a break with the owners of the land, then we will proceed with condemnation,” he said.

Ebert said he expects the issue to be decided “one way or the other” by next year’s hunting season.

Greagor said the issue is historic use by locals and visitors alike.

“Now you know how the Indians felt when the white man moved in and took over their land and ran them off,” Greagor said.

Published in September 2005

Why don’t journalists give us the real news?

September 6, 2005
Galen Larson

As I read and listen to the shabby reporting of what we are supposed to accept as fact, I grow nostalgic for journalists of the past. These Ken and Barbie cue-card readers on TV, pretending to give us news they’ve researched themselves, don’t even deserve the title of reporters. There are no more Edward R. Murrows, Lowell Thomases, Ernie Pyles, or even Peter Jenningses.

The news is now controlled by giant corporations, advertisers and the thirst for sensationalism. As a result, we get trivia instead of the news we need.

I really don’t care about the Runaway Bride, what her sentence was or the garb she wears while mowing a lawn as community service work. Real community service would have been to go to the veterans’ hospitals and carry bedpans, change bandages or help steady a soldier who has lost his leg. Ah, but that would have brought too much attention to Nero and his corporate henchmen, who are doing their best to make this great nation into a Third World country.

I have never been so glad to be this old, knowing I will soon take my place in the days of perpetuity. It’s been hard these past years, watching Karl Rove and the shrub tearing away the historical fabric of our founding fathers – our individual freedoms guaranteed by the greatest instrument ever created to govern all people fairly and humanely, the U.S. Constitution. Through their lies (now undeniable), chicanery and greed, they have reduced the freedom-loving American people to fearful, cringing serfs who are willing to accept more and more government intrusions into their privacy in exchange for an illusory security the government cannot provide.

We ignore the profiling of every one of us, the constant spying by video cameras, the amassing of mounds of computer data on our every purchase at the grocery store and bookshop. We accept X-rays of our belongings and person, insulting drug tests, imprisonment without due process or counsel. We have installed the most secretive government this free land has ever known. It has made a mockery of the Freedom of Information Act, requiring costly lawsuits to get pages of public information with sentences and paragraphs blacked out. And recently the Supreme Court has given the government the right to condemn our homes and property – not for the benefit of all, but for the greed of corporate raiders.

If we allow this to continue, each and every thought we have, group we join, or event we attend will be recorded and scrutinized if it doesn’t fall within the confines of what the government deems acceptable.

The majestic eagle of freedom has been destroyed by the buzzards of corporate power, who want nothing less than global control. With the enlistment of Karl Rove (and that’s the only thing he ever enlisted in!) as their architect, they have come up with a blueprint to make it happen.

Rove took a different tack to get the American people behind this quagmire they call a “war against terrorism.” He created lies about WMDs, terrorists, and chemical warfare. But the truth doesn’t concern Rove. The Iraq war wasn’t about getting more oil, it was to control the flow of oil and squeeze the last vestige of profit from a diminishing source of energy. The greedheads are destroying in this quest the natural beauty of “intelligent design.” Not being content to punch holes in every acre that might hold oil or gas, they also want to excavate all the pollution-creating coal they can. They callously destroy life’s necessities, clean air and clean water, and are hellbent on going after the oxygen-producing foliage of our forests.

I have no problem with capitalism, but uncontrolled capitalism soon becomes totalitarianism and the little people starve.

As I said, I’ll soon be out of here, but it grieves me to see this great nation go the way of Rome. This time it is not Nero who is fiddling, it is the masses and the news media, enthralled by lurid celebrity gossip instead of the issues that ought to concern us.

I wonder: Why is it that Dick Cheney can come out of hiding and go to the Saudis to pay his respects to a repressive foreign king when he can’t pay respect to our own fallen heroes in their flag-draped coffins? Is that just another one of his “priorities” that he referred to when he was asked why he dodged the draft during the Vietnam War?

If we had a real press in this country, those are the sorts of questions they’d be asking, not what color of vest the Runaway Bride wears.

Galen Larson is a Korean War veteran living in Montezuma County.

Published in Galen Larson

Lighting the unity torch

September 2, 2005
Janelle Holden

Nothing in life is more telling about a person than their wedding ceremony. Weddings reveal the couple’s faith, world view, and most importantly, their favorite color patterns. I’ve been to a wedding where the priest compared good love to eating a cheeseburger. I’ve been to a wedding where the “priestess” had the groom slide a rose in a vase full of water to symbolize “love.” I’ve been to a wedding where the guests sat on hay bales and the theme was “gettin’ hitched.” And as of last month, I’ve been to a wedding that was “disturbing.”

The virgin bride

The most notable fact about Katie’s wedding is that the bride, my old college roommate, was a knockdown, drop-dead, blonde virgin. This might not be unusual if she had been, say, 16. But to see a 30-year-old woman saving herself for marriage is, well, I don’t know, refreshing? It certainly is rare, as was the “submission” theme of the wedding. Her father, the pastor of the church, conducted the ceremony, and emphasized the Biblical order to “submit” to her new husband, respect him, and make him the spiritual head of the household. The groom was given the hard job of simply loving a smart, successful, and attractive woman for the rest of his life.

Since the re-election of George W. Bush, I didn’t think anything more could shock me about this country. But the fact that most Christian churches still believe that a person’s genitals determine her spiritual worth is truly astonishing in this day and age.

It was like attending a wedding where people of color are denounced, and you’re the only guest who isn’t a member of the Klu Klux Klan. I wrestled with whether to walk out, protest, or sit in silence. And though I have deep respect for women’s rights, my good manners won out and I simply fumed in my seat.

Matron of honor

Fortunately, my sister’s nuptials this Labor Day weekend should be more politically correct, but just as entertaining. My job, as “matron of honor,” is mostly to keep my mother from running the show. I’ve already started this job by refereeing the wedding program. My sister, in a moment of insanity, asked my mother to type up the program, not recognizing that this might give my mother absolute control over the actual ceremony.

The first sign of conflict was when my mom me called to complain about my sister’s selection of music. “Can you believe she asked her neighbor to sing, ‘Crazy Love?’ What kind of song is that?” she asked, and then announced that she wouldn’t type “Crazy Love” on the program, but put, “C. Love,” instead.

I’m sure all the guests will be puzzling over what the “C.” could possibly stand for, and why one would need to abbreviate the word “Crazy.”

To my sister’s chagrin, my mother also decided that she wanted to play a piano solo during the lighting of the unity candle, which wasn’t in my sister’s plans at all. My sister couldn’t outright tell her no, so she pointed out the obvious fact that a candle might not stay lit during an outdoor wedding.

This argument didn’t deter my mother. She suggested that they light a unity torch instead of a candle. Now, admittedly, I find great amusement in imagining a bride and groom each lifting two bamboo yard torches to light another bamboo torch, but I had to agree with my sister that this idea was a little gauche.

Special thanks to…

My mother complained that my sister was going overboard on the “Special Thanks” section of the program, and I had to agree. My brothers were thanked for being “champagne servers.” “The President of the National Hereford Association is titled, ‘Champagne Server’?” my mother asked. As if serving champagne was below my brother’s stature in the world.

My sister was sure to thank her cake server and guest-book attendants. As a former “cake server,” I can tell you these positions were created simply for the bridesmaid rejects of the world. It’s no honor. The last time I did it I was nearly mugged by a line of hungry children who couldn’t understand that cutting a round cake in 300 perfect squares is actually pretty difficult.

And then there is the guest-book attendant. You have to be pretty low on the wedding totem pole to be offered this spot. It takes no special talent, no rehearsing, to be a guest-book attendant. Maybe if the bride remembered that you had hunted down someone in high school and hurt him until he signed his name in your yearbook, you would actually be qualified for this position, but otherwise, you can be assured that you are the most untalented person in the wedding party. Even the candle lighter is more prestigious, because this person actually has the power to burn the church down.

Salad scissors and quesadilla makers

The whole idea of a registry is pretty weird. This is my sister’s second marriage, and even though her kitchen is full, she still chose to register for wedding gifts.

I was curious about what she “needed,” so when I spotted a $40 “Quesadilla Maker” on her registry, I nearly dropped my beer. My God! Quesadillas are possibly the easiest food item to make in the universe. Even college football players without a hope of graduating can make these things. The most useful item on her registry was the $70 foot massager, because that is one job even your spouse would refuse.

As for my virgin friend, I decided to give her a coffee maker instead of the stainless-steel salad scissors on her registry (the only two items I could afford), thinking that a coffee maker might somehow say, “I’m a good friend” more than salad scissors.

But truly, nothing can say, “I’m a good friend” more than showing up for the big day. Whether you’re the guestbook attendant, champagne server, or just a plain old guest, nowhere else can you witness human flaw, human character, and human tragedy like a wedding. So let’s raise a toast to the bride and groom, may they live happily ever after and always eat the perfect quesadilla.

Janelle Holden survived her own wedding ceremony and lives with her husband in Montana

Published in janelle holden, September 2005

How to score with your wife

August 31, 2005
Suzanne Strazza

Recently, I was out with some friends and the conversation turned (as it almost always does) to relationships and sex. (Yes, boys, we talk about it too). One of my girlfriends blurted out, “Doesn’t he understand that there is a direct correlation between my sex drive and a clean kitchen?” She elaborated, “I mean, when I get home and the dishes are done… now THAT’S hot!”

This declaration was followed by nodding heads, “Oh yeahs” and even a “Right on, sister.” It was clear that what women find to be turn-on’s are not necessarily what men think. I pondered long and hard about this — how can we possibly bridge the gap so that we all get a bit more of what we desire? I asked around and many women want the same thing. Also, women’s needs in that department are generally pretty basic and easy to meet — you just have to know what they are.

Therefore, I am offering a little list of basic turn-ons and turn-offs. All the following information comes directly from the source(es). I have not made any of this up. Feel free to hang this on your fridge for quick reference.

By the way, I promised my husband that I would keep our personal lives out of the muck for awhile, so none of the following information comes directly from me — although, I admit that I agree with most of my friends. But, I have to say, Tom does score way above average in most of the areas. Okay, first, the TURN-ON list:

DO:

  • Wash the dishes. You will score even better if they are done in a timely manner. Waiting three days to do them sort of defeats the purpose.
  • Spend time playing on the floor with the kids. Women love to see their men being sweet and playful. We also love for someone else to be “on” with the children.
  • Run the vacuum once in a while. This is a good one, but make sure you do it well — get underneath the couch and the dining-room table.
  • BIG turn-on: Clean the toilet. Actually, none of my girlfriends can even summon up that image. Maybe that’s hoping for too much.
  • Make coffee in bed for your wife. (Tom scores high in that department.)
  • Watch a good chick flick or period piece with her once in a while. This will show that you do have a sensitive side. You can also learn a lot about making your moves a bit more sensual and a bit less Neanderthal-ish. Make special note of the gentle-lifting-of-thehair and soft-caress-of-the-neck move.
  • Spend some time at home during the waking hours. “Some time” meaning more than 15 minutes before collapsing into bed and wanting “some.” You can almost be guaranteed a score if you come home early one day claiming, “I got off work early and just wanted to be with you.”
  • If you are a father, offer for her to take some time to do whatever she wants. Don’t judge if her choice is different from what you would choose to do. Getting her hair done (there’s nothing like having someone else wash your hair for you), going to a movie with her friends, sleeping — these are all necessary for a mother. Key phrase here: “Go do something fun — YOU DESERVE IT.” Please remember, going to City Market or Wal-Mart is not a break.
  • Do the laundry, start to finish; sort, wash, fold, put away. Do not wash anything of hers; ruining a favorite sweater does negate the points scored by doing the laundry.
  • Make the bed. Again, this one needs to be done well — a half-ass job gets you into the negatives.
  • Shower occasionally. Now, for the TURN-OFF list.

DON’T:

  • Fart. Manly Man ones are not romantic in any way, shape or form.
  • Use the word “baby-sit” when you’re referring to your own children. They are yours too.
  • Kick off your underwear so it lands anywhere near her head when you’re crawling into bed at night.
  • Do just your own laundry. Show that you are aware that there are sheets, towels, dishrags and kids’ clothes to contend with too.
  • Make promises you have no intention of keeping. If you say that you are going to go for a bike ride with her, GO. And don’t bring your friends along.
  • Use the phrase “lighten up” — it’s a killer. It may even get you some couch time.
  • Pick the wax from your ears or the dead skin from your feet as you proposition your gal. So not sexy.

OK, now for the big one… The bump-and-grind in the kitchen is not, I repeat IS NOT, a turn-on. (If you think that she looks really hot stirring the soup, try the above-mentioned hair-lift routine). Men might find aprons sexy; women generally regard them as part of a work uniform. The real deal-breaker is the B&G while she is doing the dishes. One last thing; Don’t offer to hump her leg.

Now, I will say that the above information does not apply to all women, or all men. Some of you may disagree with me. But all the women that I surveyed generally felt the same way.

I am also not trying to put men down — I happen to like men very much. Mostly, I am just trying to give some of you boyfriends and husbands (especially those whose girlfriends and wives I have spoken with) a few insider trading tips.

I would also love to hear from the aforementioned boyfriends and husbands about what works for you. Keep it clean and I just might pass on the information on our next Girls’ Night Out.

Suzanne Strazza, married and a mother of two, writes from Mancos

 

Published in Suzanne Strazza

An ode to the virtues of the old single-wide

August 22, 2005
David Feela

Maybe it’s like a soap-opera romance, this ongoing affection of mine for the old-style single-wide mobile homes, more commonly known as trailers.

To me their appeal is strongest when I’m driving a gravel county road and like an alien spacecraft I see one attached to a few open acres, or I’m turning into the shaded niches of a well-worn trailer park and it’s there like a time machine made of corrugated tin and glass. Maybe it’s been repainted, not the bland manufacturer’s color from 30 years ago, but a fresh swath of purple, or yellow, or turquoise and pink!

These trailers – at least the ones that haven’t fallen into ruin – should be preserved, designated as historic local treasures, of no lesser magnitude than those infamous bridges from that other county in the Midwest. Their survival offers us a touchstone to a time when a family’s housing ambitions may have been scaled back to, say, reality. No median sales price hovering around $207,000. No floor space with enough square footage to hold a line dance for a football team. Mobile homes are proof that people could actually live with less, and did. Many are still living that way, which is why I always slow down to admire these domestic time capsules. The vintage trailer is a covered bridge of sorts, spanning two banks: One side rooted with working people who could at one time own their own homes and on the other side the current real-estate market where a lifetime of slowly diminishing mortgage debt is the glimmer at the end of tunnel.

I know some people consider yesterday’s trailers trash when compared to today’s modular, custom, set-on-aslab, instant triple-wide castles, or the investment potential of an estate with a massively imposing entrance gate. Maybe so, but I’d rather spend my days renovating the past than making payments on someone else’s future.

I’ll admit that much of the styling, especially during the ’60s and ’70s, was a little too boxy for me, but it’s tough to argue with a classic trailer advertising slogan, “Home is where you park it.” For me, the idea of being self-contained has never lost its appeal. I’ve been parked since 1986 in a 1972 double-wide. I don’t know if it was new when it arrived on the property. It has no wheels, but when I have to climb into the crawl space beneath the mobile home I can see where they’d have been mounted. What a strange thought, that a home could roll in like a tumbleweed and then roll out.

Housing needs are basic for all people, but available housing has taken a nasty turn toward anything but basic. In Pagosa Springs, for example, 15 homeowners in the Riverview Trailer Park have been evicted to make way for a 39-unit condominium development, some units starting at a lofty $250,000. The same practice is happening all across the West, an economic boom in real estate that sends trailer homeowners scurrying for cover, and I am sure, for our own protection, before the real-estate bubble pops we’ll all be wearing condos, the only safe housing available.

Where’s a romantically inclined professional photographer when you need one? Maybe a lanky Clint Eastwood type, someone with an eye to show us the implicit beauty in an antiquated hallway without wheels. And even if the trailers look a little shabby by current standards, they embody a fiscal fantasy we’re in danger of forgetting. Yes, they stand for autonomy, but only as long as they’re allowed to stand.

David Feela is a teacher at Montezuma-Cortez High School.

Published in David Feela

Santa Fe Opera gives apprentices a voice

August 17, 2005
Connie Gotsch

With an arm around Lindoro, her lover, Rosina hurls an insult at Dr. Bartolo. The old fool will not marry her for her money!

Bartolo gapes, wondering how Lindoro got into Rosina’a room, disguised as a drunken soldier. The old man suspects his barber, Figaro, had something to do with the activity, but before he can find out, a chorus of police pounds on the door, demanding access to the house.

Figaro joins Rosina’s tirade, and by the time someone lets the cops in, they can’t figure out whom to arrest. They march in confused circles, to end the first act of the Santa Fe Opera’s production of Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.”

The befuddled officers are brought to life by a group of highly capable vocalists in the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Singers Program. Throughout the summer, the SFO depends on these artists to play small parts, fill out ensembles, and appear in choruses for each of the five operas the company produces.

This year, whether the audience laughs along with Figaro, witnesses the grand spectacle of fairy-tale love in Puccini’s “Turandot,” revels in the pure emotion of Mozart’s tale of the Roman Empire, “Lucio Silla,” winces as bigoted villagers drive a fisherman to suicide in Benjamin Britten’s “Peter Grimes,” or discovers the myth of Garcia Lorka in Golijov’s “Ainadamar,” SFO apprentices will sing somewhere on stage. One has a lead role. Kelley O’Connor portrays Garcia Lorka in “Ainadamar.”

The Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program for Singers began in 1957, the first of its kind in the United States. Then-SFO General Director John Crosby wanted to develop a bridge from a singer’s college work into his or her professional life — an important step, according to the recently appointed SFO director of the apprentice program, David Holloway, a tall quietly cheerful man with thick blondish hair.

“You go out there and show what you can do. People hire you.”

Also through the program, young singers can work “with wonderful conductors and marvelous artists, which is tremendous training,” Holloway says, emphasizing the words, a soft smile playing around his lips.

He reacts from experience. His postcollege vocal career began in 1966, when he was selected an SFO apprentice singer. Guided into the program by conductor Robert Baustian, Holloway worked with world-renowned singers such as Patricia Wise and Samuel Ramey. “It was my experience that let me see the larger world of opera.”

He also witnessed a classic example of “the show must go on.” A fire destroyed the opera house “on a Wednesday night after the performance and the party” for the American premiere of Paul Hindemith’s “Cardillac.” Holloway rushed to help construct a stage at a local high school. The season continued.

After two years as an SFO apprentice singer, Holloway’s professional debut came at the New York City Opera in Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte.” A stint at the Met followed, along with roles in Europe. In 1974, he returned to Santa Fe as Papagano in Mozart’s “Magic Flute.”

The chance to sing that role represented “another wonderful thing about the Santa Fe Opera Program for Apprentice Singers — the way John Crosby and (present General Director Richard Gaddes) view former apprentices.”

Before the Santa Fe Opera apprentice- singer program, a career start in an opera chorus meant a career in an opera chorus. “People would never hear you doing leading repertory. Mr. Crosby and Mr. Gaddes changed that.” After “The Magic Flute,” Holloway created roles in “The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein” and “Count Ory” in Santa Fe. Recently, he appeared in two winter projects, “H.M.S. Pinafore,” and “The Beggar’s Opera.”

While his singing career developed, Holloway began teaching, and today heads the voice department at the Chicago College of the Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. When the former administrator of the SFO apprentice- singers program retired, Holloway jumped at the chance to become the new director.

Now in his first summer on the job, he finds the current apprentices having experiences similar to his. “I’m hearing consistently how much they’re enjoying the (principal artists) Gaddes has brought in.”

Apprentices come from all over the country, and may return three times. Auditions start in October in major cities. Over 1,100 singers applied for a spot in this year’s program. memorizing four arias, and presenting two, one of their choosing and one selected by the judges. Forty-two vocalists were admitted to the program.

Besides singing the SFO repertory, the apprentices offer two evenings of their own opera scenes, this year on Aug. 14 and 21. Holloway has helped them select the music, drawing again on his own professional experience. He appeared in many of the operas from which the apprentices have taken cuttings.

Local churches and restaurants also invite the young artists to sing. “I love to hear them in another context,” Holloway laughs. “I learn so much about them as singers and performers when I hear them in a different way.” Like him, some apprentices will launch professional careers when the current SFO season ends. Soprano Jennifer Black and baritone Jordan Shanahan will enter the Metropolitan Opera’s Young Artist Program.

Meantime, Holloway will just enjoy working with them. “I try to help the kids find themselves as singers,” he says.

When the season ends, he will review the 50-year-old program for apprentice singers to consider any change to the experiences it offers. But overall, he finds it “in great shape.” Young artists will continue adding zest to the Santa Fe Opera each summer, as they always have.

To find out more about the Santa Fe Opera, call 800-280-4654, or go to www.santafeopera.org

Published in Arts & Entertainment, August 2005

A man of mettle

August 17, 2005
Christine Durand

Floyd Johnson’s unique hobby has drawn visitors from across the U.S. and abroad to his rural Dolores “Allmosa Ranch.”

A community of big and small people, even aliens, on foot and riding in everything from a wagon to a wheelchair, together with all kinds of animals, populates a small, rock-rimmed canyon in front of and below his house on County Road P.

Humorous scenarios are depicted – from both the old West and Johnson’s childhood on a Minnesota farm. A hanging bridge crosses a hand-dug pond; Johnson has also crafted a miniature stone chapel and a sod house in the setting. The amount of time required for the average person to accomplish such feats boggles the mind.

The roadside community has lured visitors who have filled two books with their names. Some merely take in as much of it as they can while driving by slowly. Most walk through, with Johnson leading the tour.

Figures are crafted of white-painted mufflers and tail pipe. Earlier in his craftsmanship, Johnson used oil-field pipe, but he found it cumbersome and limiting.

The easier crafting of his muffler/tailpipe figures has enabled Johnson to expand his roadside art community. He never really planned for it to flourish to the extent that it has.

Johnson also uses catalytic converters when he can get them – but they’re difficult to come by because they’re usually recycled.

He makes faces for his aliens from bicycle seats.

Johnson is so humble that he doesn’t really want you to consider his hobby “art.” He calls it junk sculpture. His tools are a welding rod and white paint. He says he doesn’t have more than $300 in the entire project.

Johnson pauses to express his appreciation for his neighbors, who tolerate the slow-driving tourists, for local salvage- yard owners, and for Ron Reeb and the other owners of Four States Muffler, who have provided mufflers and tail pipes for his hobby.

Johnson has poured his considerable physical stamina and creativity into this hobby because he finds it relaxing, easy and cheap. He creates for his own enjoyment and has been surprised to discover that others find his project fascinating.

Several sheep — real ones, not pipe art — also populate the created community. Johnson has added them to the setting, with its hand-dug grassy lowland area, to keep the vegetation in check. Dragonflies grace the pond and lizards scramble under rocks. An apricot tree protected by the canyon wall produces fruit every year.

Johnson’s wife, Joyce, has often been pressed into service to help move large pieces into place. While they’re partners, her patience has been sorely tested on more than one occasion. As we pass a tree-house scene and a created tree that features a dead tree trunk as its trunk, Johnson says these two pieces had to be “slid down the sides of the canyon” into place, and the grueling process caused Joyce to say “Never again!”

Johnson said his tree project gave him a whole new appreciation for the Joyce Kilmer poem that says “Only God can make a tree.”

His understated personal humor enhances the walking tour as much as the bolder written humor enhances his zany art.

A procession of figures that represent rodeo casualties is placed near a graveyard that plays gently with the deaths of imaginary citizens of the old West and a couple of Democrats of today. The rodeo casualties ride in a wheelbarrow and a wheelchair and walk on crutches. Johnson said a Navajo woman who visited recently inquired if they are “heading for the cemetery.”

Johnson’s ideas sometimes keep him awake at night. He gets up to jot them down so they won’t be forgotten. He knows the meaning of pipe dreams. In the “community,” a lifeguard jumps into the water to save a drowning person. A cow’s udder offers the choice of a “1%” or “2%” nipple.

A couple of figures peek into an outhouse with a Chinese-sounding name: the “Poo Ping House.”

But Johnson’s ability to make material that is considered worthless into something amazing doesn’t end with his white-painted community.

He built his house and a neighboring house from the ground up with “scrounged” material. He built the first (next-door) homestead for under $5,000, figuring out the process as he went. He said the land the two homes are on was inexpensive because of all the rocks that he would later find varied uses for in his roadside art.

He has also built a guest house and a tree house for his six grandchildren with scrounged, free materials.

What has brought this soft-spoken, humble man to his unusual expression of creative genius?

A history that was anything but gentle.

Johnson grew up in the rugged farm country of northern Minnesota, the only son in a family with four children.

He wouldn’t want anything negative to be written about his father, who was a Norwegian farmer. When he was a small child he didn’t talk to his father “for years,” because he “was afraid of him.” But Johnson said he loved his father and is glad he told him so before he died.

As the only son, from the time he could hold a farm tool, Johnson was pressed into service on the farm. He had extensive chores, while his father’s work load correspondingly decreased. Like so many people who have to grow up more or less in spite of their parents, Johnson heard often how worthless he was while carrying most of the responsibility for the farm.

When Johnson was 16, his father evicted him from the home. Having survived an environment of emotional abuse, heavy burdens and occasional cruelty, Johnson now had to work odd jobs to seek a roof wherever he could find one in order to finish high school.

He took a teacher-training course that was targeted to providing men to teach children who lived in rural settings. He then enlisted in the Army. Shortly before he left the Army, Johnson had a Christian “conversion experience.”

As his days to finish his tour of duty approached, he prayed for guidance about what his calling should be, asking specifically that he receive this guidance by the day he was to get out. Two days before he was to leave, he received a letter asking him to teach Navajo children in the Four Corners area.

He traveled to the Navajo Reservation with $50 in his pocket. He had $3 left when he got there. At one point his car got stuck in the sand on the reservation. In what was to be typical of his experiences with the Navajo people, several of them worked to pull him out. He tried to give them his remaining $3. They refused to take it.

The Navajo children spent two years in a Bureau of Indian Affairs school. Johnson took them after that, for grades three through six. He taught at Rock Point, in the middle of the reservation. The setting was so isolated that out of 27 children in the three grades, only two of them had ever seen a town.

He took a group of them to a small community so they could have some concept of what a town was. It got very quiet in the car as they got close to the town. “Floyd, are we going to heaven?” a little girl inquired. It took him 15 minutes to explain asphalt roads. He had forgotten to discuss traffic lights, so he had to provide some quick instructions on the streets.

He found the children to be quiet, intelligent and respectful. They had difficulty learning English because of its many exceptions and idioms, such as “The house burned down/the furniture burned up” and “Let’s hit the road.” He found that when he taught them the way English is actually spoken – “I’m gonna go to town” rather than the stiffer “I am going into town,” they could comprehend more readily.

Under protest from educators who considered his teaching to amount to “slang,” Johnson taught the language as it is spoken, and the children comprehended it much more easily. He found them to be quicker learners than the children he had worked with in Minnesota.

After teaching for a couple of years he returned to college to complete a degree. He took art in order to bring his grades up. His art teacher talked with him about the importance of visualizing every aspect of what he wanted to create before beginning the process. This insight made a difference in Johnson’s performance in art class and would later inform his unique hobby.

After returning to the reservation, he taught English as a Second Language at the BIA school across from Rock Point Mission.

Johnson was offered a principal’s position, but declined. He preferred teaching.

Floyd and Joyce were at Rock Point for 17 years. During this time they had two sons and adopted a Navajo girl when she was 10 months old.

“In many cases it was a miracle that the Navajo children were in school at all,” Joyce said. She said some of the children had to ride a horse 12 miles or more to school.

Johnson said the Navajos have a wonderful way of observing the best techniques for weaving, making pottery and doing silversmith work in Spanish, Anglo and other Indian cultures, and then incorporating these techniques into their own culture.

While devoting their time to Navajo children, the Johnsons were now “farming our children out” to Cortez to attend high school. At some point they realized that this wasn’t working out and resolved to make their three children their first priority.

Johnson set out to build the first house for his immediate family in Cortez. While he worked on it, he taught adult education part-time for Navajo oil-field workers at Aneth. After completing the house he worked in the oil field for nine years.

Later he managed the Cortez Cemetery for seven years. He had been offered a high-paying job with benefits and retirement at the same time he was offered the management of the cemetery. He said he always chose the job that offered a challenge.

Today the Johnsons volunteer for Wycliffe Bible Translators. They spend a couple of months each winter working alongside other volunteers at the Wycliffe missionary compound north of Tucson. Joyce is still on the Rock Point Mission board. Floyd said Navajos come to their home to visit, and he and Joyce go to the mission to visit them.

The phone rings. Christian Ministries is calling. Joyce quietly leaves to respond. Floyd and Joyce also work with Good Samaritan Center, Salvation Army and other local charities, but they’re not folks who want to talk about their good works.

Johnson speaks of the miracle of provision in their lives, in spite of the fact that they practically ran from any opportunity to make real money. The lightness and humor expressed through his hobby speak of the inner freedom he has acquired through sheer stamina and, later, his faith.

His life, which began in hardship, has matured to one characterized by inner peace. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Published in Arts & Entertainment, August 2005

Fighting for whitewater

August 17, 2005
Jim Mimiaga

Rafting and kayaking Colorado’s numerous whitewater rivers is a surging business, pumping $200 million into the state’s economy last year, according to industry analysts. The Four Corners contributes its share, hosting thousands of commercial and private boaters on the Animas, Dolores and San Juan rivers each spring and summer.

In the past five years a wave of popularity has hit the sport statewide, prompting cities such as Golden, Salida, Gunnison, Steamboat Springs, Vail and Breckenridge to seek water rights for whitewater parks through their towns for athletes to compete in, and for tourists to watch.

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But as commercial and residential development booms in the state, the question of whether whitewater parks can gain the legal clout to sustain themselves is unclear. Without court-recognized recreational water rights, towns like Durango, Dolores and Pagosa Springs could see their whitewater stretches depleted of the higher flows needed for the challenges coveted by river enthusiasts.

Animas River vulnerable

In Durango, officials recently began discussions to consider establishing so-called recreational in-channel diversion rights for the Smelter Rapid kayak course. The method is to ensure adequate flows for the course by securing water rights that would be senior to the inevitable thirst of developers upstream.

The Smelter course could be threatened by water demand for development up-valley in Hermosa and Purgatory, for instance. The ski area recently received approval for 1,600 more condos and 400,000 square feet of commercial space. More water is required for these projects to be built. Competing with the powerful developers’ industry for limited water resources will be challenging, said Durango City Manager Bob Ledger.

“We would probably be sued if we go forward on applying (for RICD rights),” he said. “And that fight will be expensive.”

But the thought of upstream development 50 years down the road leaving the kayak course dry is far more costly in the long run for the booming recreation town, he added.

“Durango touts itself as a recreation area, and a lot of that economic focus is on the river so (a RIDC) would be a natural adjunct to that,” Ledger said. “We understand what is at stake and that there is opposition. Developers north of the city view it as a threat to their ability to acquire water rights.”

A whitewater park that trains Olympic athletes and hosts national competitions is too important to ignore, supporters say. Water law is beginning to change from a focus that is strictly agriculture, Ledger added, noting that “new businesses like rafting have come to the fore, and they depend on the Animas River flowing by.”

Golden: Whitewater pioneer

In 2001, that change from agriculture to water sports shocked the water-development industry, when the city of Golden successfully filed for the state’s first recreation water right under the old laws. According to arcane water law, water rights are priorappropriated, or “first in turn, first in right”. So, seeing d e v e l o p m e n t upstream, Mike Bestor, Golden’s city manager, figured it was critical to secure whitewater flowing through the kayak course on Clear Creek.

“We wanted to make sure that someone upstream didn’t claim rights that would deplete our flows. Our kayak course is very important to us and our businesses here — we invested $165,000 in it,” he said.

When the mining-bust towns of Cripple Creek and Black Hawk discovered state-sponsored gambling, the development boom began. With the towns situated upstream from Golden on Clear Creek, the writing was on the wall, Bestor explained, noting that a recreational water right is non-consumptive — it simply flows by and is available downstream for further use. Also the right is junior to all other rights filed before, so previously allocated water cannot be claimed for whitewater parks.

Using the agricultural language in the law of “diverting” water for “beneficial use,” Bestor and his staff successfully claimed the repositioned boulders in the kayak course were the diversion and the economic benefit was rafting and river sports.

The Colorado Water Conservation Board sued, but the state supreme court ruled Golden’s claim was legitimate. Fearing rafters would somehow trump development, the Colorado legislature quickly passed SB 216, which puts applicants for recreational inchannel diversion rights under the purview of the state water conservation board for review and on to the state water court for approval. Currently dozens of towns are under that process, said Jeff Moag, of Paddler magazine, a national publication based in Steamboat.

“Colorado is way ahead of the curve on this compared to other states,” he said. “More than half of all whitewater parks nationwide are in our state.”

Steamboat’s claim for recreation water on the Yampa kayak course is being debated in the courts, Moag said. What is an adequate flow for sufficient whitewater runs is the question. A bill, SB 62, which sought to cap RICDs to 350 cfs, was defeated in the last legislative session because the level was seen as too arbitrary considering the variety of river sizes in the state. It could come up again next session. But the state water court’s concerns that flows demanded by river enthusiasts are too high could be alleviated somewhat with engineering, observers say.

For instance, whitewater courses could be arranged in such a way to allow for lower flows, such as creating more pools or narrowing certain channels to divert water towards wave structures.

Moag remarked that it’s inaccurate for opponents to categorize RIDCs as water sports versus agriculture. “It’s actually kayakers and traditional users of agriculture versus runaway development in the state,” he said.

“Guaranteeing use of rivers for both ag and rafting is the battle of the future.” That sprawling growth translates to 1 million new homes predicted in the next 10 years between Colorado Springs and Pueblo. For the towns of Buena Vista, Salida, and Cañon City, that could spell trouble for the worldfamous whitewater on the mighty Arkansas River.

With trips ranging from Class I and II rapids to the monstrous Class IV-V waterfalls in the infamous Royal Gorge, the scenic Arkansas is considered the nation’s most popular rafting destination. It may seem nonsensical that growth downstream affects flows upriver, until one realizes that the Onterrio Tunnel is situated near the headwaters of the Arkansas above three communities that rely on rafting for their summer economies.

The pumping plant delivers water to the Front Range via tunnels that bore through the Rockies. Saving some permanently for the rafting industry downstream is the goal of these communities, say Chaffee County Commissioner Jerry Mallett. The county, in partnership with the three towns, is negotiating guaranteed flows through SB 216, a process that has gone well, Mallett said.

“The (state water board) has indicated it will not oppose the claim if we can resolve concerns by interveners Aurora, Colorado Springs and Pueblo,” he said. “I think we’re about there because we’re balancing our rafting needs with those of developers on the Eastern Slope.”

Obviously, with the heavy snowpack in the mountains, the Arkansas River will always have a rafting season in our lifetime but in the long term — say in 100 years — that could change as more tunnels are built and more water extracted from the valley. RIDCs are insurance for rivers depending on water sports, Mallet explained. Under the pending recreation-right deal, once senior rights are claimed — and assuming there is average snowpack — the upper Arkansas would be guaranteed 1,500 cfs through the season, bumping to 1,800 cfs during river festivals in July.

Focusing on river sports has been wildly successful, and a lot of fun, said Salida Administrator Julie Feier. “Before, we had a concrete wall between downtown and the river. Now it is a river park with a trail, beaches, swimming and play holes for kayakers. Residents and tourists are there all the time now and it has created a boom for us.”

Mark Garcia, city manager for Pagosa Springs, also is tapping into the San Juan River for economic benefit. Rapids were improved along the town stretch, which flows by the town’s world-famous natural hot springs. Phase II is under way for additional fish-habitat restoration, better river access and more waves for boaters.

“The whitewater improvements have been a great hit in town,” Garcia said. “We created a standing wave for surfing and where the river was once wide and shallow, we condensed the low flows into pools for fish habitat.”

Upstream development and growth is not an issue now, he said, so Pagosa is not considering applying for recreational water rights.

Dolores Mayor Marianne Mate said the idea is worth considering. In recent years ecological improvements have been made to the Dolores River through town, a popular stretch for kayakers, inner-tubers, swimmers and fishermen. The recent river festival attracted a huge crowd this year, triple that of previous years, she said.

“When the river flowed high like it did this season, more people get to see Dolores, and there is a increase in sales taxes, so the impact is very positive,” Mate said, adding that Dolores struggles to attract summer tourists; hunting season in the fall is the big boost.

“We’ve discussed a kayak course as a way to attract visitors during the shoulder season in spring when the runoff is ideal,” she said.

Mallet urges communities with rafting not to take the flow for granted.

“File sooner rather than later,” he said. “Recreation is a driving economic force for Colorado, and securing rights for our water parks and rafting gives us standing against inevitable new development.”

Published in August 2005

Clawing their way back

August 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

Back in 1999, the chances that Colorado would ever again have a healthy population of Canada lynx did not look promising.

A program to reintroduce the native felines to the state had begun with great fanfare, as hordes of media covered the release of the first few lynx near Creede in February of that year. But within a few weeks, four of the first five released lynx had starved to death, and the reintroduction – which had been opposed all along by some groups representing outfitting, logging and ranching interests – now met with fresh resistance from animal-rights activists, who called it cruel.

More laid back than bobcats

Canada lynx are still doing well in Canada and Alaska, but are gone from much of their historic range in the lower 48 states.

Adults weigh from 20 to 35 pounds and are similar in size and appearance to bobcats. One important difference, however, is that lynx have much larger paws, enabling them to move over the top of the snow in the high-elevation forests they prefer.

Lynx also differ from bobcats in temperament, according to Tanya Shenk, lead researcher for the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s lynx reintroduction program. “Lynx are a much more laid-back, easy-going animal,” she said. “Mellow is a good word.

“Bobcats are very high-strung. When you see a bobcat you just see him for a second and he’s gone, but lynx will stand there and stare back at you, maybe for three or four minutes. Lynx tend to be very inquisitive, curious.” Historic accounts agree. A 1947 book, “Mammals of North America,” states, “Toward man, the lynx is absolutely inoffensive. Only in a trap will it fight back, and even then it may not.”

“That’s been a double-edged sword for them,” Shenk said. “If people get an opportunity for a lynx sighting, it’s wonderful because they’ll get a good sighting. But when it comes to poaching, it’s a problem.”

Nevertheless, the Colorado Division of Wildlife persisted with the reintroduction, turning more and more of the radio-collared animals loose in the San Juan Mountains, one of the wildest parts of the state.

Now, six years later, lynx are apparently thriving in Colorado.

At least 46 kittens were born this spring; 39 were documented last year. In addition, as many as 141 reintroduced adults are also wandering the state, preying on small animals and birds.

It’s a remarkable success story, particularly for a predator reintroduction, considered more difficult than efforts to restore other animals.

“As far as any reintroduction goes, this has gone extremely well, after the initial hurdles of the first year,” said Tanya Shenk, mammals biologist with the DOW and the lead researcher with the lynx program.

“The last two years, reproduction has been really good,” said Joe Lewandowski, a DOW spokesperson in Durango. “The mortality rate for the lynx that have been released has also been good.”

But the long-term future of the lynx in Colorado is by no means certain. The animals face a number of threats, most of them human-caused. Poaching and being hit by vehicles are the leading known causes of mortality, according to Shenk.

And a proposed development in the heart of the lynx’s habitat on Wolf Creek Pass has raised new concerns.

‘Off the charts’

The turnaround in the lynx program came not long after the first animals starved. Biologists had been operating under the assumption that it would be best to release the cats, which were trapped in Canada and Alaska, as quickly as possible after they came to Colorado so they wouldn’t grow accustomed to humans.

But that assumption proved wrong.

“There wasn’t a good understanding that the animals needed to acclimate and get over the trauma of being trapped and transported,” Lewandowski said. “Now they’re held for a month or two, fattened up, fed some local critters, and they get acclimated to the environment in general, the altitude and such.”

The lynx are now released after April 1, when there is an abundance of prey, instead of in the dead of winter. “The success rate kind of went off the charts after that,” Lewandowski said.

But a problem remained: The lynx weren’t reproducing. Although 41 lynx were turned loose in 1999 and another 55 in 2000, there was no evidence of any kittens. 2001 and 2002 went by without any more lynx releases – nor, as biologists watched with sinking hearts, any litters.

They decided the animals were simply too few and too scattered to breed. In 2003, the DOW obtained permission from the state wildlife commission to release more lynx. Later that year, the first kittens were found.

‘Our beacon of hope’

So far, 101 kittens have been born in Colorado, and biologists are now hoping for a couple more milestones. They want to see if the reproduction rate will exceed the number of lynx dying, and they await the first generation of kittens that will be born to cats born in Colorado.

Colorado’s lynx program is “sort of our beacon of hope,” said David Gaillard, interim director of the nonprofit Predator Conservation Alliance, based in Montana.

Elsewhere in the lower 48 states, lynx are not faring so well. “We don’t have much information, and what we do have indicates a pretty rare, struggling population,” Gaillard said.

There are pockets of lynx in western Montana and northern Washington state, and also in Minnesota and Maine, he said. “But they’re definitely at the margin of their survival, even in the southern Rockies.”

Extensive trapping and predatorcontrol efforts decimated the lynx population decades ago. The last lynx confirmed in Colorado before the reintroduction was illegally bludgeoned to death by a trapper in 1973 near Vail.

The lynx was declared a federally threatened species in the lower 48 states in March 2000. Under the Endangered Species Act, a threatened species is one likely to become endangered throughout all or much of its historic range. An endangered species is in danger of extinction.

Trapping and predator control aren’t as great a threat today, Gaillard said, but the lynx faces continuing loss of habitat for itself and its favorite prey, the snowshoe hare. The hares like high-elevation forests of fir and Engelmann spruce. When that vegetation is thinned or cleared, lynx suffer, too.

‘Steer development to other places’

Humans in the backcountry aren’t necessarily a major disturbance to lynx, Gaillard said, but dogs, poaching and trapping obviously are threats. And while a snowmobile or crosscountry skier may not faze a lynx, the compacted trails they leave can pose a subtle peril.

“Lynx are pretty specialized in their habitat,” Gaillard said. “Their niche has always been higher-elevation habitat where you have deep, soft snow.”

There, lynx can out-compete bobcats, coyotes and cougars because their oversized, furry paws enable them to move easily over the snow.

But snowmobiles and skiers compact the snow, potentially enabling other predators to get a foothold and compete for the lynx’s prey.

Another possible threat to the cats is global warming. But much more research is needed before it will be clear exactly what factors help them survive, Gaillard said.

Even the lynx’s precise habitat requirements aren’t entirely clear. Critical habitat for the lynx has not yet been designated although that is expected this fall, Gaillard said. “In the case of the spotted owl, we know they need old growth,” he said. “For lynx, they need more of a mix – some old growth for denning, some open areas for hunting, so it’s tough for us to make the case that you can’t take a tree out of an area or can’t put in a snowmobile route.

“It’s hard to know the things that come together to make or break the lynx. I think the main thing is to figure out where lynx are occurring, breeding, surviving, and do our best to really maintain those areas,” he said. “We need to learn more and try to steer development to other places.”

10,000 people at 10,000 feet

But steering development to other places often isn’t easy.

The Village at Wolf Creek, a resort planned on a 288-acre inholding within the Wolf Creek Ski Area and Rio Grande National Forest northeast of Pagosa Springs, would bring development straight to the heart of Colorado’s lynx-reintroduction effort.

The $1 billion development would include 2,172 residential units and 222,100 square feet of commercial space as well as 4,267 parking spaces, a dozen restaurants, a convention center and several hotels, all at or above 10,000 feet in elevation. The resort could house more than 10,000 people.

The controversial proposal by Texas billionaire Red McCombs, cofounder of Clear Channel Communications, and project manager Bob Honts would be a major disturbance for lynx, contends Jeff Berman, executive director of Colorado Wild, a nonprofit environmental group based in Durango.

“This is a very, very environmentally sensitive location, between the largest wilderness in the southern Rockies – the Weminuche – and the wildest– the south San Juans,” Berman said. “This is precisely the area the lynx reintroduction hinges on for success.

“One of the primary reasons for extirpation of species is habitat fragmentation, and the Village at Wolf Creek would bring a great deal of habitat fragmentation.”

In addition, increased traffic would make it much more difficult for the lynx to cross Highway 160, isolating populations on both sides of the road and potentially causing inbreeding, Berman said.

“The Village poses a huge threat to lynx persistence in the southern Rockies and Colorado,” he said. Lewandowski said the DOW is definitely concerned about the impact the Village will have on lynx and other wildlife.

“We don’t have any regulatory authority to say, ‘You can’t build here.’ We can only comment,” he said. “There will be more traffic, obviously; there will be development in wetlands, people pressure – there’s no question those things have some impact on wildlife. We believe Colorado is still a good place for wildlife, but there’s definitely a concern about the impacts up there (on Wolf Creek Pass).”

Crossing the highway

At the request of the Forest Service, the DOW did an analysis of lynx movements and highway crossings near the proposed Village at Wolf Creek. The DOW used data from the lynx’s radio transmitters, but noted that such information has limited accuracy and gives locations only periodically. The analysis concluded that lynx use the area around the proposed Village more as a corridor than for permanent residence. The corridor, however, links two primary year-round use areas, one near Creede and a second northwest of Platoro Reservoir.

Dens and kittens were found both north and south of Highway 160 in these high-use areas, the report states. The study estimated that 27 individual lynx made 52 crossings of Highway 160 in the Wolf Creek area from 1999 through 2004.

Not surprisingly, automobiles have proven to be one of the worst threats to the animals. Of 61 known deaths among the 166 cats released from 1999 through 2004, at least seven, and probably nine, were caused by cars. (There were also 12 shootings or probable shootings and nine starvation deaths, most of those in the early days of the releases.)

Radio-tracking data shows that, though some lynx have ranged northward along the Rockies or moved west toward the Utah border, the majority remain in or around the San Juan Mountains.

“From what little historic records we have, this is their historic range,” Shenk said.

Lynx have been located in eight national forests in Colorado and southeastern Wyoming, but the Rio Grande National Forest has the most, with 161 documented there during the six years of the program.

Studying the impacts

Projects that might disturb the habitat of threatened or endangered species must be reviewed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That agency is now working with the Forest Service and the developers to address the impacts of the Village at Wolf Creek, according to Al Pfister, Western Colorado supervisor for the USFWS.

“By far the main impact (to lynx) is the increased traffic that would result from the development, fragmenting the population down there in Southwest Colorado as well as killing individual lynx,” Pfister said.

“The impact of an urban development of that size and all its associated effects on the lynx that do utilize that particular area will not be insignificant. An additional 10,000 people in there, and their recreational activities, will have an effect on lynx.”

Pfister said possible options for mitigating the impacts might include under- or overpasses to enable the lynx to cross Highway 160 safely, or speed-reduction for traffic in the area. “It’s been documented that wildlife do use overpasses and underpasses,” he said.

Lawsuits and deadlines

Colorado Wild has sued the Forest Service for granting a special-use permit to the developers allowing them temporary access across national-forest land to their property. The permit was issued without a public process, in violation of an agreement the group had with the agency, Colorado Wild contends. Permanent access is a key issue for the development, which is landlocked except for a seasonal Forest Service road.

Colorado Wild has also sued the Forest Service in an effort to obtain certain public records relating to communication between McCombs and the agency. There have been allegations that McCombs’ strong Republican ties have led to special treatment for the developer.

Colorado Wild has also sued Mineral County for approving the Village development plan. Owners of the Wolf Creek Ski Area are suing the developers, too. Arguments were scheduled to be heard in District Court in Creede at the end of July.

Meanwhile, the USFWS has requested an extension on issuing a draft biological opinion on the impacts of the development. The Rio Grande National Forest is scheduled to issue a final environmental impact statement this fall on the access road to the resort. And the lynx program continues.

Starting in 2006, plans are to release only enough lynx to replace the adults who have died, Lewandowski said. Monitoring and tracking of the animals will probably continue for several years.

“”What we’re counting on is that natural reproduction is going to keep the population self-sustaining,” Lewandowski said.

Vanishing wilderness?

The controversy over the Village at Wolf Creek will rage for some time. However it is resolved, the development raises questions that go beyond the fate of just one species.

In the 1990s, when researchers were contemplating the lynx reintroduction effort, the Division of Wildlife also considered reintroducing wolverines, which once roamed Colorado’s wild places and are a state endangered species.

But the initial furor over the lynx reintroduction, as well as questions about cost, squelched that effort. Today, Lewandowski said, DOW biologists are uncertain whether a wolverine reintroduction would work.

“The idea is still getting kicked around,” he said. “In the beginning, we were talking about (reintroducing) both (species) at the same time, but we decided one was enough.

“There’s a study going on. We need to find out if Colorado still has the pristine wild environment that wolverines need. They’re even more solitary and need even bigger, vaster spaces than a lynx. “With more and more people going into the backcountry – snowmobiling, skiing – we’re going to have to take a hard look at whether wolverines are still suited to Colorado in the 21st century.”

No one is saying that, if the Village at Wolf Creek is built as planned, it would spell the end for lynx in Colorado. A single development, no matter how massive, is unlikely to doom a species.

But as more and more recreation and development come to remote places, the question becomes whether any animals as solitary and specialized as lynx can continue to survive. If Colorado’s wildest areas are no longer wild enough to sustain wolverines, or even lynx, in the 21st century, then where are such animals to live? It’s a question that, like the Village at Wolf Creek, will probably be debated for years to come.

Published in August 2005

A revelation on the road to Damascus

August 6, 2005
Galen Larson

Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Galen Larson, the avowed atheist, has seen the light, moved to the right, and become a fundamentalist. Hallelujah, praise to God.

Yes, I pray each night that gas goes to $5 a gallon so the Walker Bushes become even wealthier. I lift my eyes to the heavens and beg that there be a Wal-Mart on every corner where the undeserving working poor can find jobs that will barely allow them to make a living and keep them in their place in our society.

My heart is comforted by the fact that illegal aliens will continue to be allowed to cross the border and break the unions.

I praise the Lord that the administration sees fit to spend more on saving defunct airlines than on ensuring truck, bus and auto safety.

Lord, Lord, let the pharmaceutical companies be allowed to stop the flow of cheaper drugs across our borders so they make larger profits and continue to reap revenues from male-enhancing pills so elderly men can satisfy their new trophy wives. At least they are good Christians who aren’t living in sin, thank heaven, but follow the laws of the land in divorcing their old wives and marrying new ones.

I kneel and pray that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe vs. Wade so we have more cannon fodder for world conquests.

Tears fill my eyes and I pray that more jobs are sent overseas that I may get more inferior merchandise and the corporations more profits.

I have let religion into my body so I can be comforted when it pervades our government and we can become like the fundamentalist Muslim government in our own way. Amen. I pray that we do away with taxes and just have tithings. Taxes provide roads, schools, hospitals, and care for the elderly and infirm. Tithings buy million-dollar homes, chauffeured limousines and jet airplanes for self-ordained deliverers of God’s word.

I pray that the Pope can stem the terrible tide of sorcery stemming from the Harry Potter chronicles, so as to not interfere with his own wizardry of bread into body and wine into blood, and smoking incense, golden chalices, crosses, statues of Mary and other mementoes we are told not to worship.

I know now that I am saved, that all of us believers no longer have to worry about saving God’s gift of this world we live in, that we can freely destroy the air, water and land in our quest for riches and power.

I give thanks to the heavens that we can have more video games depicting violence, murder and mayhem to better prepare our youths for war and hatred. I pray that Halliburton gets away with its padded invoices so Dick Cheney will never have a monetary worry as he and Bush save us from the insurgents. It fills me with blessed gratitude that we are killing Muslims by the hundreds so they do not stand in the way of our fundamentalists’ rights. Glory to God in the highest. I pray for the corporations to be able to throw off their chains and be allowed to have all the offshore dummy offices they want to evade taxes and search for countries with a slave-labor pool to lower their costs.

Hallelujah, hallelujah! When all this happens I will know then that God has spoken and I was wrong to ever be an atheist.

Amen.

Galen Larson is an iconoclast living in rural Montezuma County.

Published in Galen Larson

Crafty Karl Rove does nothing by accident

August 2, 2005
Katharhynn Heidelberg

This just in: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove does not suffer from foot-in-mouth disease, terminal or otherwise. Nor does he suffer from bad judgment; on the contrary, his judgment is sharp as a Damascene sword.

His June statements that stopped just short of calling Democrats and “liberals” traitors – and more recently, the did-he-didn’t-he debate concerning the leaked name of a CIA operative – show that quite well. What’s questionable is much of America’s credulity when it comes to the administration that shields Uber Spinmeister Rove.

“Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.”

Rove’s utterance, at a fundraiser for the Conservative Party of New York State, has been heard ’round the world. At the very least, using the blood of 9/11 victims to lubricate one’s propaganda machine is outrageous, but there’s something more shocking. The truth.

The truth is, Rove’s statements were no accident, but a deliberate attempt to provoke outrage. The truth is, the Bush regime shields Rove because, although its puppet king is roundly ridiculed for lack of intelligence, it is yet capable of knowing a good thing when it sees it. A Machiavellian propagandist of Rove’s ilk is a good thing for an administration that values its secrecy.

Just consider the direction in which White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan tried to steer questions.

“. . .Karl was simply pointing out the different philosophies and different approaches when it comes to winning the war on terrorism,” McClellan said at a briefing following Rove’s remarks.

No he wasn’t, Mr. McClellan. He was bashing the opposition and clambering over graves to do it. This isn’t about the “context” of the remarks; it is about the remarks themselves. The remarks are divisive.

Not only did you deny this like the good little shill you are, you in the same breath added fuel to the fire with that jab at the opposition. Nice one. Guess with Jeff Gannon — or whoever that King of Softball and Deliberately Convenient Questions really was — gone, you have to obfuscate on your own, huh?

Rove is a careful man, a canny man. The man who talks to Time reporter Matthew Cooper, making reference to a CIA operative whose identity was revealed by columnist Robert Novak as Valerie Plame (the wife of a Bush critic), then clams up when Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller are dropped in the soup, then at last admits to speaking to Cooper, is hardly a man who fears negative publicity. Rove says nothing without thinking first.

Consider his defense: Rove said he’d spoken to Cooper to clarify that the CIA director hadn’t authorized a trip that Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, had undertaken to find out whether Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. Rove had “never knowingly disclosed classified information.”

Rove, the White House said, was just trying to save reporters from writing an inaccurate story. Oh, Karl! You softie! What a pleasant change your actions are from 2002, when the White House cited a nonexistent report from the U.N.

International Atomic Energy Agency, that said Iraq was but months from developing “nukuleer” weapons; then fed this and other huuuge lies to the media. Journalists — ironically including Madame First Amendment herself, Judy Miller — then spun these into golden stories to justify the Iraq War. It’s nice to see that this time around, you’re protecting reporters from spreading falsehoods. Tell me, is this penance for all the other lies you’ve helped perpetuate? Because the cynic in me tends to think the only “steering away” of reporters that you do is when their articles could potentially harm L’il Pinocchio Bush.

But this is precisely why Rove’s actions are not indicative of insanity, or even (exclusively) of hubris. Rather, they serve Rove’s ultimate goal – protecting the administration.

For his purposes, not even the truth concerning the Plame scandal matters much to Rove. What matters is the diversion of attention away from the White House, where, after all, someone leaked Plame’s name. What Washington is doing — from excusing Rove’s 9/11 rhetoric to keeping mum about Plame — calls to mind some twisted, high-stakes game of “watch the birdie.” Watch Rove; ignore the Bush administration, which lied us into a war.

Which lied our dedicated servicemen and women into early graves. Which, through successful spin-and-deny strategies, caused a number of Americans to believe the war on terror and the war in Iraq were one and the same. Which silences or retaliates against dissenters and calls it “patriotism.” Which feeds journalists propaganda, then accuses the “liberal” media of not telling the truth.

Yes, says the White House, watch the birdie, flitting from topic to topic and running his brilliant, dangerous mouth. Yell to have his security clearance yanked; clamor for prosecution — while you’re doing that, you won’t be questioning us.

That’s the White House’s hope, and it should define our reaction to Karl Rove’s next dumping of bilious, partisan rhetoric. Let’s give him the merit he deserves — none — and to the powers that let him be, let’s pay very close attention. And, concerning the July controversy, let’s see that there will not be a “next time” for anyone concerned. We could do that by ignoring the lackey and minding the master. That would cancel out Rove’s usefulness to this callow administration.

Katharhynn Heidelberg writes from Montrose.

Published in Katharhynn Heidelberg

4H should change the way it does business

August 2, 2005
Janelle Holden

My mother never wanted me to join 4-H. When my father suggested signing me up, she argued that 4-H was “too political,” and she wasn’t interested in camping out at the county fair for a week. But my father prevailed by promising to take sole responsibility for my 4-H education, and dutifully deposited me at least 15 minutes early to the monthly meetings of the Wingina Chapter.

It’s not in my mother’s nature to completely ignore my activities, however, and at 11 years of age, I ended up demonstrating how to make her buttermilk ranch dressing to a room full of people whose sole reason for being there was to watch a relative give a similar demonstration. This experience taught me that family bonding often occurs during moments of slow torture.

Part of my mother’s hesitancy stemmed from her experiences with my older sister, who spent endless hours sewing and baking and filling our freezer so that she could win the “high-point” award at the county fair.

Since my mother didn’t care whether I won any ribbons, I drifted along, picking up photography and cooking projects and pleasing my father, who urged me to make money on a swine project.

We made a deal that if he purchased a piglet, and its feed, I would then use the money I made selling it at the 4-H auction to buy my school clothes that fall. Reflecting back, my willingness to agree to this probably foreshadowed bad financial deals to come, but at the time, I wasn’t given much of an option, and I didn’t realize that pigs could be such cash cows, pardon the pun.

For several months prior to the fair, I dutifully fed and watered my pigs, ironically dubbed Wilbur I and Wilbur II, and trained them to “show” by directing them down a long alleyway with a cane to a concrete paddock where they enjoyed a daily 15-minute shower and scrub.

Now, if you haven’t seen a pig show at the county fair, you’re really missing out on quality entertainment. Pigs are not like cattle. You can’t lead them around docilely by a halter. Instead, pigs are herded with canes and the occasional knee to the side to try and convince them to turn their good side towards the judge. Really, the pig goes where it wants to and you just try to keep it from either a) charging the judge and bowling him over or b) starting a fight with the other pigs in the arena. The likelihood of both of these things happening is actually quite high, which is why the pig shows are one of the most wellattended events at the fair.

But my daily wash and scrub treatment made my pigs gentle and hesitant to fight and ultimately led to my winning the coveted title of “Reserved Jr. Grand Champion Pig Showman.” After winning such a dubious title I scandalized my mother by broadcasting the word “castrated” across four counties when asked by the local radio station whether my pig was a boy or a girl.

When my pigs were loaded into the stock trailer and hauled off to the slaughterhouse I didn’t cry, but I knew kids who did. I was reminded of them when I spotted a picture of a boy with a steer in a tire shop in Dillon, Mont., last year. A handwritten note posted next to the picture read, “Dear Tire Shop, thank you for buying my steer at the 4-H auction. He was a good steer. I could sleep with him. I still miss him. I hope he is good eating.”

I remembered writing similar notes to my buyers, and it dawned on me why my mother thought 4-H was “too political.” Despite 4-H’s sanctified status, and the county fair its most sacred ritual, it’s not as apple-pie as most people think. Like many c o m p e t i t i v e activities for children, 4-H is often more about winning than learning. And with a significant amount of money involved, the stakes are much higher.

For instance, the price of a steer, or a pig, at the 4-H auction often reflects more about the family’s status in the community than it does the actual value of the animal. At 4-H auctions without fixed prices, you might see two blue-ribbon animals sold for vastly different prices depending on which family does business with the local tractor dealership. One might argue that local businesses pay two to four times the market value for these animals as a sort of charity, to help rural kids build their college funds, but this simply places more emphasis on the prize than the experience.

You may brush this off as trivial corruption that evolves in any organization, but I see it as a key reason why healthy landscapes are eroding nationwide and food quality has greatly diminished. Although there is no denying the value in learning how to care for an animal, 4-H should be teaching children the greater rewards of an agricultural lifestyle, not how to perfectly trim the hair on a steer’s ear. Let’s face it. We aren’t enticing kids to farming or ranching with outdated models of agriculture that emphasize the cronyism of small towns. We need to give children a larger vision of the challenges of owning land and livestock in the West, and important landstewardship practices.

So, instead of teaching kids the sorrow of parting with a favorite pet for a high price, let’s teach them the joy of eradicating noxious weeds with goats and fattening their steers on carefully grazed grass. Only then will 4-H take on any permanent meaning.

Janelle Holden, who comes from a longtime ranching family, writes from Livingston, Mont.

Published in August 2005, janelle holden

Patriotism, the last refuge of scoundrels, thrives

July 26, 2005
David Long

Let’s see:

  • The immoral, illegal and interminable war in Iraq drags on, killing our kids as well as Iraqi citizens while squandering our wealth.
  • Our economy heads for the toilet as the price of gas skyrockets and consumer confidence plunges.
  • North Korea and Iran continue to work on their nuclear arsenals.
  • Lack of a “guest worker” program allows exploitation of illegal immigrants to continue even while some workers sacrifice their lives trying to cross the Mexican border.
  • The insane War on Drugs rages on, ruining lives and filling our prisons. (I could go on, but I’m fresh out of Prozac.)

So what are majority members of our “compassionately conservative” Congress, who have historically low approval ratings from those who elected them, doing to occupy their valuable time and earn their generous salaries?

Nothing about these problems, of course, since that would demand more political courage and wisdom than can be mustered by these timid souls. They are, however, expending plenty of energy on matters of a more ethereal nature that are apparently expected to serve them well during re-election campaigns.

Along with their recent posturing as some kind of ethical (!) experts and making a big stink over disconnecting a brain-dead woman’s feeding tube, our lowly-esteemed solons are once again trying to pass a Constitutional amendment that would allow the federal government to outlaw burning or otherwise desecrating the American flag.

Yeah, even though flag-burning is not exactly an incendiary issue or even a smoldering one — it’s an extremely rare practice, in fact, but one the U.S. Supreme Court has declared protected political speech — our legislators have apparently been seized by the urgency of getting it under complete control, and flag lapel pins are once again in vogue.

The proposed amendment, which needs the approval of twothirds of both legislative bodies and three-fourths of the states before becoming law, easily passed the House last month and is close to the support it needs in the Senate.

Torching Old Glory is not a very effective means of speech in my mind, since it makes many folks fly into a patriotic rage, but it is nonetheless an act that expresses a strong opinion about immoral wars and so on.

The flag itself is only a scrap of colored cloth, of course, but one that has traditionally stood for certain principles that can’t be destroyed by fire or any other means except not living up to them – like banning free speech, for example. Obviously most people – particularly politicians – don’t object to popular expression (“My country right or wrong,” for instance), so the only speech that needs protection is that which is generally despised. (Often the truth, for instance.)

So by pushing for such a Constitutional amendment our worthy solons (I’m being sarcastic here) are actually undermining the First Amendment of that allegedly sacred document and imposing the kind of restrictions on free expression that are usually found in banana republics and tinhorn dictatorships, where the national leader’s visage glares from posters on every street corner and criticizing the government is a crime.

But wrapping themselves in the red, white and blue whenever the chance arises is behavior only to be expected from pandering lawmakers far more interested in re-election than living by in a philosophy consistent with the Bill of Rights. (Including that former conservative principle that those who governed best governed least.)

Unfortunately, those who have committed their support to this shameful and completely unnecessary abridgement of our civil liberties include Colorado’s freshman Sen. Ken Salazar, a nominal Democrat who had promised to take “a hard look” at the proposal after his brother John, another so-called moderate Democrat who represents us in the House, voted with the two-thirds majority there to demonstrate his halfbaked, poorly reasoned patriotism.

In announcing his support, Sen. Salazar mouthed some predictable pap about how the flag deserves our “reverence and protection,” which makes me wonder, in light of our approaching Independence Day, if his concern would include the glut of imported starspangled banners produced by slave labor in Chinese sweatshops and available at all our major discount chains. (Probably not a lot of reverence is shown by the forced laborers who stitch them up and possibly wipe their hands and other body parts on them.)

I, too, believe that the hallowed principles represented by our national symbol need to be protected, but that’s the distinction these lawmakers don’t get: Protecting the principles for which the flag stands is far more important than protecting the flag itself.

And criminalizing free speech — no matter how loathsome that speech may be to some — will accomplish the exact opposite while also demonstrating the blatant hypocrisy of a country whose stated goal is to spread liberty and democracy to the unenlightened corners of the world.

What’s next – an amendment that would ban all criticism of our glorious leaders?

Don’t laugh. The government assault on free speech (Can you say ‘Patriot Act’?) has only just begun.

David Grant Long writes from Cortez

 

Published in David Long, July 2005

Fortunes of The Real War

July 22, 2005
David Feela

“Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.” — Richard M. Nixon

These days there’s not much to be said for the integrity of the American presidency, so when I say I admire something about Richard Nixon, it’s likely I won’t get a lot of respect either. He may have been a liar and a crook, and possibly even cheated on his mother’s income taxes, but recently I’ve been forced to reassess the man and he’s turned out to be slightly better than I thought, at least in my book.

You see, I hunt for used books in thrift stores, books with some resaleable value to book dealers, collectors, and antiquarians. Five years ago I found a copy of Richard M. Nixon’s “The Real War” in a cardboard box on the floor of a Farmington thrift store. I never read it and truthfully, nothing about the book made me want to read it. What interested me was the signature on the title page: Richard Nixon.

At first I doubted, like the war itself, that it could be real. The book was in fine condition, practically untouched, probably unread. I paid a dollar for it and headed back to Cortez with my little piece of history.

At home I compared Nixon’s handwriting with facsimiles on other documents he’d signed and realized the signature was authentic. I thought, Wow, this book must be worth some money! I was elated – not my usual reaction at seeing Richard Nixon’s name in print. But the elation didn’t last long. I took “The Real War” around to several book dealers in Flagstaff and Durango and the best offer I could get was $15 cash or $25 trade. One bookseller even told me he wasn’t interested.

“You must be kidding!” I stammered. “The book has Richard Nixon’s signature in it. Richard Milhous Nixon. The 37th President of this country!”

“Sorry, there’s no interest in Richard Nixon any more,” the dealer replied.

Like Nixon, I resigned myself to a philosophy of wait-and-see. Each time I picked up the book in its cardboard slipcase I imagined I was shaking hands with a former President. The handshake felt stiff and lacked any warmth – exactly how I suspected Nixon’s handshake would have felt – but for me, the book embodied the man.

I stored it in a closet where the light of day rarely entered. Poetic justice for a man who kept us in the dark for so many years, but also darkly tragic for a public figure who spent 27 years in politics, failing and then succeeding, making comeback after comeback, finally achieving the highest office of the land. When Nixon died in 1994 I marveled at my foresight, for I had already laid his book to rest, and I’d almost forgotten I owned it.

Then, with a rustle of newsprint, I heard Deep Throat croak in the media; in my mind, Nixon surfaced again. I pulled the book out, and I swear the silver edges winked at me. I’d met a new dealer in Mancos who dabbled in selling books on eBay – an electronic consortium for public opinion expressed not in words but in dollars and cents. He agreed to list the book, but cautioned me not to expect too much. He advised setting the starting bid at a mere $9 and then waiting the required seven days.

On the second day of the listing the bid rocketed up to $16.99, but interest fizzled; no new bidders for another day. My only consolation was that if the book sold so cheaply, at least the buyer would be forced to pay shipping costs. As is the case with electronic auctions, nothing much happened until the final day – actually, the final hour. Then the bidding got furious: $62.05, $101.25, $121.08, and eventually, in the last minute, $152.51, plus shipping.

I had Nixon to thank. He’d not only signed the book, but he’d managed a comeback from the grave.

David Feela writes from Cortez.

Published in David Feela

Mounting concern over power-plant pollution

July 17, 2005
Gaily Binkly and David Grant Long

Concern is mounting locally about the pollution produced by area power plants and a proposal to build a new coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Reservation.

On June 18, some 100 citizens gathered at a rally in Shiprock, N.M., to say “dooda” (Navajo for no) to the proposal for the $2 billion, 1,500-megawatt Dsert Rock Power Plant that would be built south of Kirtland in the Nenahnezad chapter, near the San Juan Generating Station and the Four Corners Power Plant. The plant would provide energy for areas such as Phoenix, but not for the reservation itself.

That same day, the League of Women Voters in Montezuma County, which is pushing for more equipment in the Four Corners to monitor the pollutants produced by power plants, heard a presentation about the toxic metal mercury.

Protestors at proposed Desert Rock Power Plant

Meanwhile, a report is due shortly from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Water Quality Division regarding fish-tissue sampling conducted last summer at McPhee and Narraguinnep reservoirs in Montezuma County. Those reservoirs currently carry mercury advisories warning anglers to eat only limited quantities of certain fish.

The advisories were based on samples taken in 1993, according to Bob McConnell of the water-quality division. He said the office has been swamped with work but he hopes to have a report compiled and released later this summer that will show whether the fish in the two reservoirs have more or less mercury than before.

The Shiprock rally was organized by Diné Citizens Against Ruining our Environment (CARE), along with the Dooda Desert Rock Power Plant Committee and the San Juan Citizens Alliance.

Citizens listened to speeches, signed petitions, and viewed posters such as: “Sithe Energy = The Phantom Menace,” and “They breathe this (showing blue skies) and buy cheap power. We breathe this (showing haze) and don’t need more.”

Joey Valencia and Shane Mason, both of Hogback, N.M., who walked along Highway 64 carrying signs protesting the plant, said they live near the San Juan Generating Station and are concerned about the haze they regularly see in the air.

“The haze is bad,” Valencia said. Lucille Willie, 27, of Burnham, N.M., said she lives 30 miles from the proposed plant site. She said she sees a yellow smog in the morning and worries about the effects it has on her sheep and horses, as well as wildlife and the entire ecosystem. “Pollution kills a bunch of plants,” she said. Growing up by the Navajo Coal Mine, she said, she saw how the hills where she played as a child were transformed into flat barren stretches with “hardly any plants.”

“Everything is all dead,” she said. “You can’t even go into the lake (Morgan Lake) because the water smells.”

She said she knows many people favor the plant because of the prosperity it might bring, but others oppose it. “A lot of elderlies don’t want it, but they’re afraid to speak up,” she said. “But I think you have to be like a bear, not like an ant.”

Earl Tulley, Diné CARE vice president, who lives in the Blue Gap area, said any type of economic development that happens in Indian country or among people of color seems to be “the dregs of industry.”

“The people I associate with are sick and tired of being sick and tired,” he said. “They get cancer, they get respiratory ailments. This is aside from the traditional diseases of alcoholism and diabetes. But all of these are preventable.”

He accused the plant’s backers of glossing over the effects it will have. “The Diné Power Authority is sugarcoating this industry in the name of making sure we are gainfully employed.”

But he added that another point that had to be considered is conservation. “The main problem is that we as the consumers need to cut down,” he said. “Do we need four TVs in every house? All these conveniences are taking their toll. That is where all the juice is going.”

He said fighting the power plant is difficult in the political climate of the Four Corners, which he labeled “Bush country.” But there is definitely a large segment of the Navajo population that is worried about the plant’s health effects, he said. “People are analytical thinkers at this point.”

Certainly members of the League of Women Voters are becoming analytical thinkers on the subject of power plants. While the rally was going on, the league was listening to a presentation by Sylvia Oliva, an air-quality consultant who operates an ambient-airquality station at Mesa Verde National Park.

The station is the only monitoring site for airborne mercury in Montezuma County. The league, which has not taken a position on the new power-plant proposal, is asking for permanent monitoring stations on the Dolores and Mancos rivers.

The league is also applying for a grant to set up a panel discussion with representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Indian Affairs about the proposed power plant. The EPA’s regional San Francisco office will make the final decision on whether to grant approval to the new plant and what conditions to set on it.

Oliva said there is a growing awareness of mercury’s toxic effects. The element is naturally present in coal and is released as it’s burned. It’s estimated that a third of mercury pollution occurs naturally while two-thirds is manmade, coming from discarded mercury, waste incinerators, coal-fired power plants and refineries.

However, pinpointing the source of mercury pollution is not as easy as it may sound, because airborne mercury can be carried for thousands of miles. Seventeen percent of people living in polar regions have mercury present in their bodies at toxic levels, Oliva said. Half the mercury pollution worldwide comes from Asia, she said.

Mercury exists in different forms. Inorganic forms are poorly absorbed by living organisms, but inorganic mercury can be converted to an organic form called methylmercury, which is easily absorbed and more dangerous. When inorganic mercury is deposited in bodies of water, either by being leached from ores or by being deposited from the air, it is changed to methylmercury through exposure to sunlight and consumption by microorganisms.

Areas in Colorado and New Mexico had some of the highest airborne mercury levels in the United States in 2002, much of which was attributable to huge wildfires in the region, Oliva said. Wildfires release the element from trees and soil.

However, in other years when there were major fires burning, mercury wasn’t as high, said League President Mary Lou Asbury, who isn’t convinced the fires were the major factor.

She said that’s why the league believes more mercury-monitoring is needed in the Four Corners, to provide more data about where the pollutant is coming from.

“Mesa Verde’s monitoring is there, but we have no idea whether it applies to the valley at all,” she said. “We don’t know until we do our own monitoring here.”

The group is asking for:

  • One permanent mercury monitoring station from the EPA to measure airborne mercury collected as part of precipitation. This wet-deposition equipment costs $12,000; lab analysis is $7,000 a year for weekly samples, and data analysis is $4,000 a year, she said.
  • Fixed-site monitoring at spots along the Dolores and Mancos rivers, rather than the “dip monitoring” that occurs now on the Dolores only. This would be the responsibility of the U.S. Geological Survey.
  • Portable ozone monitors from the EPA. Such monitors cost $21,000 each, Asbury said, plus $13,000 a year for operation and data analysis. The monitor must be attached to a weather station, so the station would need an upgrade to fit it for ozone monitoring. The ozone monitors are needed because ozone is also a concern regionally. Ozone is a colorless, odorless pollutant created when exhaust from combustion engines and coalfired power plants (nitrogen oxides) reacts with oil- and gas-field emissions (volatile organic compounds) and with sunlight. High ozone levels contribute to asthma and other lung problems.

Ozone levels have been gradually rising over the last several years, according to data collected from the monitoring station at Mesa Verde.

“We’ve already had some ozone levels out of compliance at the park this year on an hourly basis,” Asbury said. The EPA’s maximum standard for ground-level ozone is 84 parts per billion. Levels at Mesa Verde have spiked into the high 80s at times, Asbury said.

“Eighty-five is where non-compliance begins. Where asthmatics and people with lung problems have difficulty starts at 50,” she said.

“The numbers are going up. It is not going down, it’s upward. And we don’t have a new power plant yet, so don’t ask me why it’s going up,” she said.

The natural-gas and coalbedmethane wells proliferating throughout the San Juan Basin are considered a large factor in ozone pollution regionally. Combustion engines also cause ozone.

The league has also asked for assistance and monitoring equipment from the BLM in New Mexico and Colorado. Asbury said Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar’s office has offered to ask the EPA, BLM and USGS to support the proposals. Sen. Wayne Allard and U.S. Rep. John Salazar have also been asked for support but have not yet committed.

The Montezuma County commissioners and Cortez City Council have passed resolutions calling for the additional monitoring.

Officials from plant developer Sithe Global, based in Houston, have said the proposed plant would be one of the cleanest and most modern ever built and would bring up to 200 jobs to the Navajo Nation.

But ongoing pollution from the two other nearby power plants has sparked concern about the accumulation of toxins in the atmosphere. The Four Corners Power Plant near Fruitland, N.M., was recently named the No. 1 emitter of total nitrogen oxide in the nation in 2004. It was the 24th worst in carbon-dioxide emissions and was No. 37 in the release of mercury, according to the Environmental Integrity Project in Washington, D.C.

The San Juan Generating Station near Waterflow, N.M., was the nation’s 21st worst emitter of nitrogen oxide in 2004 and was tied with the Four Corners Power Plant in the emission of mercury.

However, PNM, which operates the San Juan Generating Station, announced earlier this year that it would install mercury-emissions reduction technology as well as technology to reduce the particulates, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides it emits.

Asbury said she is especially concerned because there are additional power plants on the drawing board in the Four Corners, including one south of Chaco Canyon and several along the Arizona-New Mexico border.

“That’s the scariest part. I’ll be dead long before these will come on line, but people’s children and grandchildren will be affected by this, not just here, but throughout the country.”

Asbury said she hopes citizens’ interest will persuade the EPA to take a hard look before approving the Desert Rock Power Plant.

“I’m hoping there’s enough commotion the EPA will maybe ask, demand, before they grant the permit, that they have to clean up the old power plants. This was done by the EPA in Colorado concerning a new power plant being built in Pueblo — they demanded that the new power plant that wanted to be built in Pueblo had to clean up the old one before they would grant the permit.

“There’s a possibility we could come out of this thing ahead. It just depends on what the EPA does and how many people, organizations, government entities, tribal chapters and so forth get involved.”

Published in July 2005

Jeff Solon entertains regions jazz-lovers

July 17, 2005
Connie Gotsch

In a corner of the patio of The Bluffs Restaurant on Farmington’s East Main Street, Jeff Solon finishes adjusting his saxophone strap. Beside him, another musician curls his right hand around an electric guitar’s fret board.

The early crowd gathered at small wooden tables grows silent, setting down glasses glowing red with wine. Leaning from under umbrellas that shade them, women in bright backless dresses and men in short-sleeved shirts ignore the brilliant golden heat of the late afternoon sun.

They watch the two musicians. Both stand in the intense light, still as subjects in a Rembrandt painting. Then together they move, almost imperceptibly. Guitar and sax sing to life. The first notes of “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” soar above the adobe wall that surrounds the patio. It’s five o’clock on a Thursday night in summer. For the next four hours, the Jeff Solon Duo will entertain people who desire a glass of wine, and patrons who come to The Bluffs to enjoy steak, seafood, and local atmosphere. Many Four Corners jazz-lovers know Solon, both as a soloist, and as an organizer of duos, trios, quartets, and a 1940s Big Band.

A 30-year resident of Durango, he performs from Farmington to Telluride. This summer, he’s appearing at The Bluffs for the second time.

“We built the patio last year,” says the restaurant’s manager, Ivy Ledbetter, elegant in gold cocktail blouse and black skirt. “We started doing music just to (let) people have someplace to (be) outside. We do wine tastings, and we have a big crowd from Durango and Farmington.”

So every Thursday at The Bluffs, from now to Labor Day, (with a couple of Fridays thrown in) Solon creates the Jeff Solon Duo with someone — tonight, guitarist Kevin McCarthy. Their first set offers lively renditions, ranging from ’40s Swing and ’50s Standards to Cool. In consideration of their audience, they present mostly mellow tunes.

But Solon admits they sometimes get “wild and crazy,” working in a little bebop. McCarthy describes their music in one word: “improvisational.”

Then grinning, he elaborates.

“We follow a form but we take it out. We listen to each other and just keep playing and try to stay faithful to the music.”

Together since the early 1990s, they don’t talk about what they do on stage, but Solon says they’ve developed a rapport to the point where playing is spontaneous and intuitive.

McCarthy laughs. “You start to read each other’s mind after a while.”

Looking at the two of them, it’s easy to believe that. When performing at The Bluffs, they wear casual clothes that fit comfortably on their slender frames. Both are of medium height. Each speaks softly. With a straight face, Solon will insist he no longer remembers where he came from before he arrived in Durango. McCarthy asserts he is not sane to play jazz for a living in today’s economy.

Both are self-taught musicians. McCarthy picked up the bass and guitar in garage bands. Appearing in his first talent show in third grade, he worked out most of the Beatles’ tunes “before (the group) came to this country.” Thereafter, he mastered “harder rock” — Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.

Then he discovered jazz, which he found a “complete enlightenment.” It got all his fingers moving on his guitar. “I became aware of playing over chord changes, and that opened a whole new world.”

Solon grew up in the ’60s folk era on bluegrass harmonica. A jazz lover since he was a kid, he graduated to flute, sax, and clarinet.

He believes jazz constantly evolves.

“The beauty is, you can’t ever figure it out. You can’t ever get to the end.”

So, as the sky turns from brilliant turquoise to azure over The Bluffs Restaurant, Solon and McCarthy suggest tempos and arrangements to each other with subtle nods. Occasionally, one proposes the next song, but usually, they just know what they want to do.

“At this stage, I’ve got a lot of years into it,” muses Solon. “You just want to create music.”

But as long as he’s been playing, he still puts in the practice to keep it up. Most of his days disappear amid rehearsals. He also composes. McCarthy spends time on two things in his studio: guitar and bass, and sculpting in bronze. He finds the visual arts and music work hand in hand.

“Very often when I’m playing my instrument, I’m looking over at one of my sculptures, figuring it out — without even knowing I’m doing that.“

Tonight, he and Solon start wailin’. The crowd lingers over dinner, handling cutlery and china as quietly as possible.

Above, the sun drops to the horizon. The heavens change from azure to navy. Shortly, the moon will glisten in blackness. The day, once hot enough to blacken a catfish, will dissolve into almost zesty coolness.

But people will hardly notice. Every ear will focus on the Jeff Solon Duo until 9 p.m., when the glorious Thursday evening in the summer concludes on the patio.

The Bluffs Restaurant is at 3450 E. Main. For information, call 505-325- 8155.

Published in Arts & Entertainment, July 2005

Is ‘LIZ’ crazy? A unique zoning system is challenged

July 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

When people first hear about Montezuma County’s zoning system, they have one reaction: They laugh. The idea of landowners zoning themselves is so unusual that it sounds absurd, at least on first mention. Some of the county’s residents firmly believe LIZ – the county’s Landowner-Initiated Zoning scheme– IS absurd. In two separate lawsuits, citizens who found themselves next to land uses they think are incompatible with their neighborhood have challenged the whole concept of LIZ.

But county officials staunchly defend the system, saying it was a necessary compromise between property-rights advocates and those wanting conventional zoning. Because it places zoning choices in the hands of the landowner, they say, it will only work if landowners do their part and choose a zone for their property.

A chance for input

Some people have the idea that Landowner-Initiated Zoning means every landowner can do whatever he wants, when he wants. But that’s a misconception. Zoning changes, subdivisions and high-impact operations require county approval and go through a step-by-step process that involves the county planning department, planning commission, and county commissioners, and includes a public hearing.

Landowners can indeed pick their own zoning, designation, subject to approval, but their options are limited by how big a piece of land they own and where they’re located. Someone with a 3-acre tract obviously can’t be zoned A-80 (for large-scale agriculture), and someone who lives in the remote parts of the county can’t choose an Urban Service Zone, which has to be near a municipality.

Landowners can also opt to stay unzoned, but that doesn’t mean they can do whatever they want, either, though many may have that illusion. It means they can continue in their current land use but have to apply for a zoning chance if they want to do something different.

In each zoning designation, there is a list of the uses by right, along with uses that would be conditional. It’s not an anything-goes system, but it’s clearly more lenient than most zoning schemes.

“As LIZ is currently structured, every use is a conditional use,” said Mike Preston, who worked with the county during the planning process to facilitate community involvement. “Nothing is absolutely prohibited.”

However, anyone wanting to start a commercial or industrial operation that exceeds certain “threshold standards” has to obtain a high-impact permit. For example, a business that would generate more than 15 vehicle round-trips per business day or create noise of more than 70 decibels at its boundary line would have to seek a permit. LIZ and the high-impact-permit system are two major elements of the county’s land-use code.

County officials say the fact that the code requires a public hearing for high-density subdivisions and major businesses or industries is one of its most important provisions.

“Before LIZ, and it’s easy to forget this, there was absolutely no public input on any of these decisions, except under the subdivision regulations,” said Preston. “What LIZ and the highimpact permits have done is create an opportunity for a proposed development to be considered in the publichearing process, and for everybody to come in and give input.”

An unconventional county

But why not simply adopt a conventional zoning system? County leaders give a couple of reasons.

Traditionally, Montezuma County has shied away from imposing topdown land-use regulations, turning instead to citizens’ working groups to develop its land-use policies. It was such a group that created LIZ, and another group that more recently came up with development restrictions for the scenic Dolores River Valley. The other reason is simpler: A conventional zoning system would not be politically feasible in Montezuma County, officials say.

The unincorporated parts of the county were unzoned until the mid-1990s, and many residents liked it that way.

“It was pretty much do as you please,” except for some subdivision and septic regulations, said current County Commissioner Dewayne Findley. “It was zoning by variance and exemption. There was no predictability with that – it was entirely up to the discretion of elected officials.”

But in 1994, under pressure from economic-development and homebuilding groups, the county commissioners agreed to put a question on the November ballot asking whether the county should “prepare a comprehensive county plan resolution which shall include a land use plan, a method for public involvement and comment in land use decisions, and a mechanism to ensure a reasonable relationship and compatibility among and between adjoining land uses” by July 1, 1996.

The resolution, which was non-binding but was a way of gauging public opinion, passed 56 to 44 percent. The commissioners then appointed 12 citizens to come up with a land-use plan.

The group, which had only one member who was a strong advocate of traditional zoning, came up with the idea of voluntary zoning initiated by each landowner him- or herself.

The county’s new comprehensive plan was adopted in January 1997. The land-use code, with the LIZ component, was adopted on July 20, 1998.

Bulls and cows

“If the (ballot) referendum had been for an official zoning system with zones to be determined by the government, the referendum would have never passed,” Findley said.

“Montezuma County was too adamant about their private property rights to have ever accepted that intrusion.”

Indeed, arguments over whether to have any zoning at all were bitter and protracted. One county resident got up at nearly every public meeting of the citizens’ planning group to complain that zoning was “Nazi-ism.” Then- Commissioner Tom Colbert, a conservative rancher who supported private property rights, was roundly lambasted at one public forum for even considering a land-use plan and accused of doing to the county “what the bulls do to the cows.”

Some members of the citizens’ group strongly opposed conventional zoning, saying it was a sham because anyone with money could get a zoning change, so what was the point? They frequently repeated the mantra, “If you want to have say over the land next to you, buy it!”

On the other side, some citizens argued that zoning is a function of government and that Landowner-Initiated Zoning was untried, unclear and overly lenient. One former county resident, perhaps prophetically, said at a public meeting that it was unconstitutional and would be thrown out the first time it was tested in court.

At the time, there were about nine counties in the state without zoning. Today, there are just three or four, most on the Eastern Plains, according to Andy Hill, planner for the Department of Local Affairs Office of Smart Growth.

She said even counties without traditional zoning usually have a permitting system that is similar to zoning. Dolores County is an example, she said.

Hill added that Montezuma County’s system is the only such system she’s ever heard of.

In adopting LIZ, the county tried to walk the line “between zero zoning and a full-blown standard method like the city of Cortez,” explained Findley. County officials hoped landowners would talk to each other about how to classify their tracts and, over time, patterns of similar zoning would evolve in neighborhoods.

How well is LIZ working?

In the seven years LIZ and the landuse code have been in place, some patterns have indeed emerged: The county’s northwest quadrant is mostly zoned for large agricultural lots, for example.

On the other hand, 46 percent of the county’s land parcels, and 56 percent of its total acreage, remain unzoned. Preston emphasized that does not mean owners of unzoned parcels can do anything they want. “Unzoned means you’re zoned into your current use,” he said.

But critics of LIZ contend that it simply does not provide residents enough protection from the possibility of living next to a land use they would find obnoxious. Anyone who’s ever lived within half a mile of another human being knows few things can ruin one’s quality of life faster than a neighbor who does something noisy, smelly or potentially hazardous with his land.

A number of highly controversial subdivision or business proposals have come before the county in the last seven years. In a few cases, LIZ was used to reject a proposal outright.

In 1999, the county turned thumbs down on a treatment center for at-risk youth proposed in an upscale neighborhood near Summit Ridge. In 2000, commissioners said no to a highimpact permit for a proposed wilderness camp for at-risk youth at the foot of Mesa Verde and also rejected a proposal for a high-density subdivision just outside Cortez city limits.

In 2001, the county also denied a request for small-lot zoning on Granath Mesa outside Dolores, where surrounding landowners were mostly zoned for larger lots.

But generally, even the most controversial developments gain approval.

County officials instead try to mitigate neighbors’ concerns by requiring the developers to enact specific measures. For example, in the case of the hotly debated Line Camp gravel pit in the Dolores River Valley, the board limited its hours of operation and required acceleration and deceleration lanes at the turnoff to the pit on the highway.

“It’s the planning commission and county commission’s job, where you can, to act as a mediator and an arbitrator between the proposed development and adjoining neighborhood,” Findley said. “You try to find ways to mitigate the adverse impacts. I think that’s our role rather than just looking for ways to say no.”

Some individual decisions the county has made under the LIZ system have been challenged in court, but the two recent lawsuits go a step further, challenging the system itself.

Conflicting uses

A complaint filed May 17 in District Court objects to the county’s decision to allow the expansion of an existing warehouse owned by Jay and Lea Stringer in the Mancos Valley. Another complaint filed June 15 in District Court against the county involves its approval of a high-impact permit for a gravel-crushing operation in the Lewis area.

The plaintiffs in both cases are represented by Goldman, Robbins and Rogers of Durango, the same law firm that represents La Plata County.

In both lawsuits, the plaintiffs charge “that the County’s Landowner-Initiated Zoning scheme is facially invalid because it provides for illegal spot zoning” and “does not establish a comprehensive or logical plan for land use and development of the unincorporated territory within the County.”

Spot zoning – zoning small islands within rather than broad areas – is prohibited by state law.

The Stringer warehouse is home of Farm Goods for Kids, an Internet business, as well as other similar businesses with different names. Last year, the county approved a high-impact permit for the Stringers to construct a 30,625-squarefoot warehouse for their operation.

Many neighbors objected, arguing that the area along Road G southwest of Mancos is mainly residential and agricultural. The land surrounding the Stringers’ 52-acre tract is all either unzoned or zoned AR 3, for Ag- Residential 3-acre tracts. The Stringers’ land is zoned AR 35.

In April, the Stringers withdrew a request to have 17 acres of their land rezoned as commercial/industrial after legal concerns were raised.

Jeff Corbin, one of numerous plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Stringers and the county, said he and his wife bought their land 16 years ago and watched as the Stringers moved in, started a small machine shop (to which they did not object) and then expanded.

The county’s approval of the highimpact permit for a new warehouse is out of line with the quiet rural nature of the surrounding land, Corbin contends.

Although there are other businesses in the area, he said they are “basically residence-operated” and have only one or two outside employees, if that.

The Stringers’ expansion plan allows them to have up to 60 employees. Corbin said the county planning process didn’t seriously consider the neighbors’ objections. “Dealing with the commissioners has been extremely frustrating,” he said. “That’s why the lawsuit got filed. We just felt like our concerns were never heard.”

Corbin said the LIZ system is worthless without a master plan that would set out zones for the future. “I’ve heard the commissioners say they just need to tweak it a little bit, but for me, tweaking isn’t going to work unless they really set forth some limits that say what the different areas are.”

He also said he felt that the decision to approve the warehouse expansion had been made before the public hearing ever took place.

Findley, however, adamantly denies that. “We don’t just rubber-stamp these things,” he said. “I read the regulations. I don’t just say, ‘I feel like approving this one.’ You wouldn’t be successful very long doing that.”

Chuck McAfee, the plaintiff in the other lawsuit, which is against the county and Stone Crushing, likewise believes LIZ and the land-use code aren’t working. McAfee ran for county commissioner in 2002 on a platform that included reform of the land-use code, but lost to Findley. McAfee then served on the county planning commission but recently resigned.

“I believe that the land-use code is being improperly and inconsistently applied,” he said. “My situation is a case in point.”

On May 16, the county approved a high-impact permit for the Stone gravelcrushing operation on 232 acres on remote Road Z, about a half-mile from McAfee’s 2,300-acre tract. The surrounding properties are zoned AR-35 or AR-10 or are unzoned. The property in question, like Stringer’s, is zoned AR-35.

McAfee said the gravel operation is incompatible with the neighborhood. “It’s not associated with agriculture and it’s certainly not residential,” he said. Under LIZ, he noted, “If certain zoning patterns happened in an area, that was supposed to be recognized and honored.

“The gravel pit is an example of how adjoining landowners and the permittees can’t predict what’s going to happen to them.”

Losing the war?

But what will happen if the plaintiffs win their lawsuits and LIZ is thrown out? Would the county revert to being unzoned? Would all the decisions made under LIZ be invalid? No one seems to be sure. Plaintiffs attorney Jeffrey Robbins did not return a phone call from the Free Press.

“It means they won the battle and lost the war,” Findley said. “If the landuse regulations are no longer valid, we go back to 1998 when we had nothing. Landowners can go out and do what the heck they please. We go back to the Dark Ages.”

McAfee said he does not believe the entire land-use code would be thrown out even if the LIZ portion were successfully challenged.

“I suspect some zoning that has happened under LIZ would be invalid and that could have implications on permitting that has been allowed under the zoning,” he said.

“But if it is invalid, we need to know so we don’t keep on using it, and it seems to me our county government and administration will do nothing to examine this and fix it if without being compelled to do so.”

Deterring business?

Although LIZ’s effects on individual property owners are the basis of the lawsuits, some local leaders are concerned about a broader problem: They worry that LIZ is hampering economic development.

Cortez City Manager Hal Shepherd said the lack of a clearly defined industrial zone could deter some businesses from locating here. He said he has urged that some areas away from residential areas be “pre-zoned” as industrial.

“The problem is we have few industrial sites, so if we do get lucky and get somebody to come take a look at us and they know they’re going to have to go through a re-zoning situation, they’ll probably go somewhere else,” he said. “During the six months it takes to go through the zoning process and public hearing, they could be starting up someplace else.”

He said he would like to see at least a couple hundred acres zoned for light industry – “not smokestacks” – where a few businesses could locate. Having industries to create jobs is critical to the local economy, he said.

“You don’t create a sustainable economy by just having retirees and people on limited incomes. You need that money from salaries to change hands four or six times in the community if our retail is going to make it.”

The area already suffers from the absence of an interstate highway or major airport, Shepherd said, so an uncertain zoning system is just an additional obstacle to economic development.

The easy availability of domestic water fuels sprawling residential growth and further crowds out places where industry might locate, he said. Without zoning, Shepherd said, even when a business does starts up in a remote rural part of the county, it may soon find itself surrounded by homes as adjoining agricultural tracts are subdivided.

“Then you’ll have a conflict between the later-arriving residential users that don’t like the noise and trucks and traffic associated with the business.”

He said LIZ was probably a “great first step” for the county but that an overall plan is needed to guide growth.

“I don’t think there is any vision to tell how this county’s going to look in the next 20 to 40 years,” he said.

‘Make a statement’

Findley concedes that LIZ may not offer much predictability, but he said most county residents probably wouldn’t support a conventional zoning system. He pointed out that the 1994 ballot question never mentioned zoning.

“I think LIZ has accommodated the resolution and the wishes of the people,” he said.

But, he added, the system would work better if more people would designate a zone.

“If it’s unzoned, they have made no statement as to what their neighborhood is going to be or their own land, other than the current use,” Findley said. “If I could make one request of the citizens it would be to zone their land,” he said. “Take advantage of LIZ and make a statement as to what the future of your neighborhood will be.”

Published in July 2005

A feminist take on the whole ‘Star Wars’ saga

July 17, 2005
Gail Binkly

Call me the Feminist Movie Critic, I guess, but ever since viewing “Revenge of the Sith,” I’ve been troubled by how easily our popular culture seems to revert to creaky stereotypes despite all the talk there has been in the past few decades about new roles for women.

If you hate space opera and don’t follow pop culture, you may not know that “Revenge of the Sith” is the final installment in a six-part film epic by director George Lucas. Although it’s third in the chronology of the story, it’s the final movie of the saga to be released (sort of like the way the Beatles’ last recording was actually “Abbey Road,” although “Let It Be” was released later).

Anyway, “Revenge” recounts how Anakin Skywalker, father of Luke Skywalker (the hero of the original “Star Wars” trilogy, now known as Episodes IV-VI) turns from an idealistic and passionate Jedi knight into the malevolent Darth Vader, Luke’s nemesis. Although the plot has major holes and there is far more action than acting, “Revenge of the Sith” is a lively, imaginative film with some stunning visuals. Lucas uses his specialeffects mastery to bring a plethora of exotic visions to life. There are amazing futuristic spacecraft, dazzling otherworldly landscapes, and aliens of every sort, from insectoid creatures to a galloping basilisk.

Yet, at its heart, the entire “Star Wars” saga is — dare I use this dated term? — pretty sexist.

The first movie, released back in 1977 (when Women’s Lib was at its height) is, of course, a reworking of the classic King Arthur legend. Luke is a young Arthur, pure of heart and noble of purpose. His best friend is Han Solo (Sir Lancelot). Princess Leia (Guineviere) completes the love triangle, and you’ve also got Obi-wan Kenobi (Merlin, the wise wizard figure) and the evil Vader as Mordred. (But in a twist on the classic Oedipal conflict, instead of being Luke’s son, as Mordred is Arthur’s son, Vader is his father.)

Lucas took care back then to make Princess Leia more than a helpless, wilting female. She’s depicted as smart and sassy, and it didn’t seem to matter that her rescue was the focus of the tale. But as the trilogy continued, Leia seemed to be shunted into a more traditionally feminine role. Sure, she talked tough and wielded weapons, but she was never in charge of anything, never flying a ship, always taking a back seat to Luke and Han Solo.

In “Return of the Jedi,” she attempted to rescue Han from the hands of the loathsome Jabba the Hut, but wound up being captured and in need of rescue herself. In a particularly kinky note, she was dressed in a bikini and chained at Jabba’s side, apparently some kind of sex toy — although he wasn’t even of a humanoid species, so it’s hard to understand why he would find her attractive.

Still Princess Leia was at least a critical figure in the original Star Wars trilogy.

In the three “prequel” films (Episodes I-III), there isn’t a single woman like her. “Episode I: The Phantom Menace” (a truly awful movie) dealt with the travails of the young Anakin. “Attack of the Clones” showed his developing love affair with Padmé Amidala, former Queen of Naboo and now a member of the Galactic Senate.

You might think that because she’s smart and politically involved, Padmé would be a strong character, but she isn’t. She really exists only to provide a reason for Anakin to turn bad. And what a reason it is [spoiler warning here!] — she dies in childbirth. In this futuristic high-tech galaxy buzzing with spacecraft and light sabers, a young healthy woman dies in childbirth. No one can save her, because she isn’t dying of any specific cause, only a broken heart.

It’s the most ancient cliché in the movie/ storytelling textbook. Beautiful young woman dies tragically, prompting Our Hero to hate the world. (We saw it in “The Road Warrior,” ”Death Wish,” “Braveheart,” ad infinitum.)

But that’s it: That’s Padmé’s role. And the role of the only other strong female character in the prequel films, Anakin’s mother, is likewise to die and further warp Anakin’s nature.

Look at the list of supporting characters in “Revenge of the Sith”: Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, Count Dooku, General Grievous, C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewbacca, Mace Windu, Senator Bail Organa. . . They’re all male, even the robots.

Where are the women in this galaxy?

Look, I’m not saying that every movie has to offer up an Affirmative Action cast — this many females, this many blacks, this many Orientals. Some films naturally have homogenous casts. If you’re making a World War II movie, it will tend to be about men. A “chick flick” is mostly about women.

So why does it matter if the “Star Wars” saga is so overwhelmingly male? I guess because it’s occupies such a large place in our modern mythology. In an era when video games offer endless images of scantily clad, waspwaisted, big-breasted females, it would be nice to have something in the space-fantasy genre that isn’t so backward- thinking.

The world of science fiction has always been the bailiwick of adolescent males. In “Revenge of the Sith” and the other “Star Wars” movies, George Lucas has done nothing to change that.

Published in July 2005

The economy is humming in Montezuma Creek

July 17, 2005
Marilyn Boynton

On a San Juan River terrace thousands of years old, where natural cobbles make a bumpy parking lot, trucks and cars are lined up around a neatly painted metal building. The site may be ancient, but the citizens of Montezuma Creek, Utah, are beginning a new enterprise there.

Named Navasew LLC, the business offers jobs sewing shirts for the U.S. Army. America’s high-tech soldiers fighting in the deserts of Iraq will now be garbed in camouflage created in the deserts of Utah.

Sewing a uniform shirt at Navasew

Navajos of Montezuma Creek belong to families living there long before historic records mentioned them in the 1860s, but life in the arid Four Corners — though often beautiful — has always been hard. Presently unemployment is more than 50 percent on the reservation.

For a time, the 12,000-square-foot building occupied by Navasew was used by a ski-wear company called Bula. But globalization caused them to move operations overseas three years ago, throwing their small work force out of jobs and leaving the building vacant.

Meanwhile, in Tennessee, two men long employed in the textile industry – Richard Chase and Brian Roberge – also “saw the handwriting on the wall,” Chase said. Both were working in the struggling textile industry and saw that they were likely to lose their jobs, so they decided to become entrepreneurs. Together they formed Omega Apparel in Tennessee, Chase being the operations manager and Roberge the chief financial officer. Omega is based upon the idea of teaming with HUD and non-profit agencies to start new plants that will supply textile items to the U.S. military.

Its agenda is to locate a jobless area, put together financing for a new operation, guide the enterprise for at least 10 years, train the local work force at all levels, and secure a business alliance between the new company and Omega’s successful Tennessee plant. Such an alliance enables production flexibility and allows both plants to receive preference for Department of Defense contracts.

Chase and Roberge learned about Montezuma Creek, with its empty building and able work force, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which put them in touch with the non-profit ICA Group, a consulting and venturedevelopment organization in Massachusetts, and eventually with the Rocky Mountain Farmers Co-op.

When Chase first arrived in Montezuma Creek from the greenery of Tennessee, one can only imagine how it looked to him. Some visitors are instant lovers of this landscape where every ridge and mesa is etched against the skyline and all shade gradually from brown to smoky blue with distance. Here green is precious.

Asked what he thought of the tiny town upon his arrival, Chase just laughed. In any case, he spent 14 months training Navajos to sew camouflage shirts for the Army. He plans to be on-site another eight to 10 weeks before leaving Navasew in the hands of its workers, guided by a newly hired plant manager, Bennett Korach, also a 35-year veteran of America’s collapsing textile industry.

Omega Apparel is structured with many workers and few bosses. Navasew will have just one plant supervisor, who eventually may also be a Native American. According to Chase, only about 15 percent of the company structure consists of “indirect” jobs – janitor, payroll clerk, mechanic, packer, and manager. There are no middle men, a situation that is not only efficient but also satisfying for employees.

Navasew ownership was turned over entirely to its own workers in 2004. Employees directly own 53 percent of company stock, leaving 47 percent divided between Chase and Roberge, all a strictly private ownership. Most of the employees are female and Native American.

Under a 10-year agreement with the government and the Navajos, Omega will continue to guide Navasew for another five to six years. Chase and Korach will take employees to negotiate with buyers in Philadelphia, teach locals how to deal with the Department of Defense and its paperwork, and coach them in contracting with fabric mills back East.

This entire home-grown scenario is promulgated under the Buy America Act and the so-called Berry Amendment, which mandates that all clothing for the Armed Forces must be made in the United States, of components whose very threads are also made domestically. This created a niche for people like Chase and Roberge to promote local industry.

Chase said if the Army is looking at any two providers, the one willing to start in a jobless area gets the contract. Navasew in Montezuma Creek pays based upon piecework. According to Chase, the average wage earned under the piece-incentive system is $8.50 per hour. One worker at the established Tennessee plant consistently earns $14 per hour, he said.

But this certainly does not feel like a sweatshop. Perhaps it is the building’s cavernous interior with its vaulted ceiling, or the soothing desert-colored camouflage heaped over numerous tables, or a certain serenity carried by the Navajos – whatever the cause, the place conveys an unexpected air of grace.

The company started in December 2003 with only 13 workers, but is expanding and will soon reach more than 100. Navasew had a five-year contract to make shirts for the Army at 171,000 units per year, and this was recently increased to 250,000 per year. Among the Navajos, both men and women traditionally have worked in arts and crafts. Some men already are sewing at the new plant, and more have applied for jobs there.

Chase, with obvious enthusiasm, explained every aspect of the company’s product. The shirts represent the first change to Army camouflage in 20 years, constructed of thick rip-stop nylon in a medley of cool desert shades – light gray-browns and soft olives with the pattern produced randomly, as it is digitized. As required by law, they are totally made in America. Every two weeks, Navasew receives 2,000 pre-cut shirts in pieces from the Tennessee plant. It takes 43 operations to put each garment together.

The shirts are designed for combat, with some pockets specially slanted so that a soldier can reach inside them while lying flat on the ground, and elbow pads for crawling. Instead of buttons, these shirts have a heavy-duty nylon zipper up the entire front. (Zipper failure could be more problematic than button failure, but no doubt experts thought of that.) Every pocket and opening is provided with Velcro fasteners to close out sand. On one arm is a pocket with a special patch, covered with a tiny Velcro flap, that reflects red under night vision so that troops can detect a friend rather than a foe. Soldiers are supposed to wear these shirts beneath their body armor, and the high, soft collars are designed as an old-fashioned plain band, to prevent body armor from chafing the neck.

When Navasew is fully staffed, it will mean a great deal to the people working there and the local economy. One young woman, the quality-control specialist, too modest to give her name for print, said she used to drive back and forth to work in Cortez, and now has two extra hours a day to spend with her family.

Marlene Dee Ben of the Montezuma Creek Workforce Center, believes she can move five to 10 women, some as young as 18, from welfare to work with Navasew. Young parents seeking a way to support their children can be completely trained by the company, she said.

Chase intends to leave behind a competent operation when Omega Apparel completes its mentoring at Montezuma Creek. Omega will move on to repeat the whole process in another location with high unemployment, perhaps elsewhere in the Four Corners.

Navajos historically have received what is new and transmuted it into what is culturally their own. At Navasew, although still under tutledge in complex and specialized business practices, already these workers have created something essentially Navajo.

Published in July 2005