Colorado Environmental Law Journal

I. Introduction Since the enactment of the Wilderness Act in 1964, some western states and counties have become involved in protracted battles over the federal designation of Wilderness within their jurisdictions. Many of these states and counties are composed of significant amounts of federally controlled land – for example, 64.5 percent of the State of Utah is owned and managed by the federal government.[2] For many of these communities, Wilderness is viewed as a threat because it restricts certain revenue-generating activities (e.g. oil or gas Continue reading →

*I. Introduction The headwaters of the Columbia River are in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana. From its headwaters, the Columbia River’s mainstem flows 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) crossing the U.S.–Canada border before it empties into the Pacific Ocean along the border between Oregon and Washington (figure 1). It is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest and the fourth largest in the United States. The Columbia River Basin (“the Basin”) covers 671,000 square kilometers (259,500 square miles), an area roughly the Continue reading →