The News from Badlands

More than Rushmore: Take a South Dakota trip

CUSTER STATE PARK, South Dakota - The wild burro wouldn't take no for an answer.

We had already encountered grazing pronghorn antelope, packs of wild turkeys, prairie dogs, and enough bison to render us downright blase when yet another of the enormous beasts emerged on our four-day trip through the Black Hills of South Dakota.

But the snack-seeking donkeys were a tourist's dream, moseying up to the car window for a bite of carrots, Cheetos or whatever else was handy. The feeding frenzy is common in these parts: Moments later, a particularly assertive burro blocked our path down Wildlife Loop Road until we turned over more foodstuffs.

Oglala Sioux could regain Badlands national parkland

The southern half of this swath of grasslands and chiseled pink spires looks untouched from a distance. Closer up, the scars of history are easy to see.

Unexploded bombs lie in ravines, a reminder of when the military confiscated the land from the Oglala Sioux tribe during World War II and turned it into an artillery range. Poachers who have stolen thousands of fossils over the years have left gouges in the landscape. On a plateau, a solitary makeshift hut sits ringed by empty Coke cans and shaving cream canisters. It is the only remnant of a three-year occupation by militant tribal activists who had demanded that the land be returned.

Now the National Park Service is contemplating doing just that: giving the 133,000-acre southern half of Badlands National Park back to the tribe. The northern half, which has a paved road and a visitor center, would remain with the park system.

Why national parks, coal-fired power plants may be neighbors

Nature photographer Hullihen Moore specializes in vistas of Virginia's Shenandoah National Park, but worries he'll soon be unable to see his beloved ridgelines through a yellowish haze of industrial emissions.

On some days, thick air already obscures mountains just a few miles distant, he says. So adding six new coal-fired power plants nearby, as is proposed, might make view-gazing impossible.

Shenandoah isn't the only national treasure whose scenic values are up in the air, however. From Virginia to Utah, the air quality of at least 10 national parks, including many with crystalline views, is threatened by plans to build at least two dozen new coal-fired power plants, parks advocates and air-quality experts say.

The little-known reason places with names like Badlands, Wind Cave, and Great Basin could soon see sullied air is a federal proposal that would lower the bar for developers seeking permits to build upwind of the parks, these critics say.