A Wyoming farmer battles industry and bureaucracy trying to find out whether hydraulic fracturing – used in natural gas drilling – polluted his drinking water.
For steelhead, dirty water might be better than clean
The West Fork Little Bear Creek in northern Idaho winds through sloping hills and Palouse Prairie farmland on its way to the Potlatch River. The cool, shaded stream seems like typical steelhead habitat. But just above a narrow basalt canyon sits a wastewater treatment plant, which handles 110,000 gallons of sewage and other municipal waste…
A fee-dodging retiree forces a national forest to rethink access charges
Soft-spoken, bespectacled Jim Smith makes an unlikely activist. The former Mobil Oil geophysicist retired to Sedona, Ariz., about 10 years ago, drawn by the spectacular red-rock scenery. In November 2009, Smith drove five miles of rough road to the Vultee Arch trailhead and backpacked in for a night. When he returned, he found the Forest…
The ‘Utah solution’ to immigration
Utah State Rep. Bill Wright is conservative to the bone. The Republican seems flabbergasted by the immigration debate that’s flared up since the passage of Arizona’s SB1070 last spring. Critics say the law — tied up in federal courts over its questionable constitutionality — legitimizes racial profiling in order to ferret out undocumented residents. But…
See you in July
This will be the last issue you receive for a month; we skip an issue four times a year. Look for the next HCN to hit your mailbox around July 25, and in the meantime, visit our website, hcn.org, for fresh blog posts, new Writers on the Range columns and other exciting content. Summer visitorsBen…
Significant — and nutty — quotable moments in the state legislatures
Closing budget gaps and cutting spending — often steeply and painfully — dominated most Western legislative sessions, except in Wyoming, which is bolstered by oil, gas and mineral taxes. Colorado merged its parks and wildlife agencies; Nevada’s new public employees won’t enjoy health insurance in retirement; and Washington universities will hike tuition by more than…
Wildfires burn big in Arizona and New Mexico
In the Southwest, this summer’s fire season looks like the worst since 2002. Years of severe drought and fire suppression have left Arizona and New Mexico forests loaded with fuel and drier than diner toast, and this winter’s La Niña weather pattern parched them even more. The massive Wallow Fire has surpassed the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski…
A land of subtle beauty: A review of Llano Estacado
Llano Estacado: An Island in the SkyEdited by Stephen Bogener and William Tydeman192 pages, hardcover: $45. Texas Tech University Press, 2011. The Llano Estacado is a featureless plain, punctuated by canyons, that covers much of west Texas and eastern New Mexico. In the early 19th century, this sea of grass supported millions of bison, and…
A lonely crusade
In many ways, it’s a sad story: The groundwater a Wyoming couple relies on to sustain their little farm suddenly turns foul. So Louis Meeks embarks on a six-year crusade to discover how it happened, suspecting that nearby natural gas wells are somehow involved. He battles corporations and governments and alienates many of his neighbors,…
Hydrofracked: One man’s quest for answers about natural gas drilling
Pavillion, Wyoming There are few things a family needs more than fresh drinking water. And Louis Meeks, a burly Vietnam War veteran with deep roots in the central Wyoming grasslands, had abundant water on his 40-acre alfalfa farm, which is speckled with apple and plum trees, on a rural dirt road five miles from the…
Abrahm Lustgarten on fracking
Since 2008, Abrahm Lustgarten has reported for ProPublica on the environmental threats posed by gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing in communities nationwide. He won the George Polk Award for his coverage in 2010, one of the most prestigious prizes in environmental journalism. In this episode of High Country Views, Cally Carswell talks with Lustgarten about…
It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure: A review of Permanent Vacation
Permanent Vacation: Twenty Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks Volume 1: The WestEdited by Kim Wyatt and Erin Bechtol 205 pages, softcover: $15.Bona Fide Books, 2011. In Permanent Vacation, editors Kim Wyatt and Erin Bechtol have assembled an eclectic collection of essays by cooks, river guides, maids, backcountry rangers and horse wranglers…
River Town
I came to Flagstaff, Ariz., to run her river. The river. Flagstaff is a river town, although you’d never know it at first glance. The closest stream that flows year-round is Oak Creek, 30 miles to the south near Sedona. As the crow flies, Flagstaff is 75 miles and 5,000 vertical feet from the Colorado…
Thank the lawyers, Part I
Hal Herring’s wolf article is most welcome (HCN, 5/30/11). Western land-use reform was only a remote hope before lawsuits leveled the playing field. Those of you thinking nice collaborations are the way to go now have militant lawyers to thank if you succeed. You had better hope they continue, albeit with a bit more prudence.…
Thank the lawyers, Part II
In Hal Herring’s reconstruction, the lawsuits environmental groups filed are the prime cause of anti-wolf sentiments (HCN, 5/30/11). I’m skeptical. Herring implies that if the “hard-line” groups had gone along with the Obama administration, Old West folks would have accepted the wolf. I count as friends many Old West farmers, ranchers and loggers. Their visceral…
A long and studied road
By focusing on the controversy of the Clinton, Bush and Obama years, Hal Herring allows us to forget that Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in ’73 (HCN, 5/30/11). The Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Team worked through Jimmy Carter’s term. Ronald Reagan was in office when the Recovery Plan was signed. George H.W.…
‘Armchair naysayers’
HCN has once again provided Hal Herring with a forum to promote his personal views on conservation (HCN, 5/30/11). Though little emphasized by Herring, the complete lack of cooperation by Wyoming to support recovery, along with the embryonic wolf populations in Oregon and Washington, has created a difficult situation for legal and balanced application of…
Not just wolf whiplash
I, a former advocate for wolf re-introduction, am suffering a severe case of wolf whiplash (HCN, 5/30/11). It’s sad, considering how much time, money and effort I have invested in wildlife and habitat conservation. I have lost all trust in those who live by the courts, and have no tolerance for groups who know lawyers…