By Ken Steinken for the Havre Daily News If the legal appeals
don't work, two of the nation's three largest grasslands will
become home to the biggest railroad project since Abraham
Lincoln was president. Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad
plans to build a 260-mile line through Buffalo Gap National
Grassland in South Dakota and Thunder Basin National Grassland
in Wyoming. The line would connect to the railroad's existing
track to create a 900-mile network designed to haul low-sulfur
coal out of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. I wish I could do
something to protect these grasslands, to help people understand
they are treasures more scarce here than forests or mountains.
But how do you save a grassland? What do you say to help people
understand it needs to be preserved? A grassland doesn't help.
It doesn't do itself any favors by what it is. A grassland is
subtle; not like the Grand Canyon that threatens to devour you
if you fail to give it the honor it is due. Nor is it like
Devil's Tower, which suddenl