Development and an unproven conservation strategy put the desert tortoise in a tight spot, life in the Bakken for its few female workers, water pollution in the eyes of the EPA and a Utah community, and more.
What’s in the water in Woods Cross?
A Salt Lake City suburb weighs environmental risk as it grapples with drinking water contamination.
The Blue Window
Journeying from redrock desert to an icy wasteland: an essay.
Can we save Mojave desert tortoises by moving them out of harm’s way?
Feds aim to save threatened tortoises by relocating them away from development
The Bakken oilfields: ‘No place for a woman’
One woman’s effort to survive the Great Recession in booming North Dakota.
Indefensible space
Thanks for a clear, well-reasoned argument on a controversial issue (“Stand down from Western wildfires,” HCN, 7/22/13). Unfortunately, whole communities are nearly indefensible because they were settled without much thought for fire, floods and the like. It is one thing to stand down from an indefensible house or two, or a smaller fire. But as…
Reading to maturity
Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and MisbehaviorBrandon R. Schrand221 pages, softcover:$16.95. University of Nebraska Press, 2013. Brandon R. Schrand’s second book, Works Cited: An Alphabetical Odyssey of Mayhem and Misbehavior, retraces the Idaho author’s life through his obsessive love of literature. Each personal essay is paired with notes about a book that influenced…
Smokey the Bear gets cuddly
THE WESTTwenty-five years ago, river guides who’d mastered the art of steering boats through the Grand Canyon decided to start a magazine. It would celebrate the history of the ancient place and its band of young Colorado River runners, reveling in the job’s excitement and occasional tedium and revealing the sometimes-deadly hazards of ferrying tourists…
Suffering from suppression
Western forest fires are inevitable; it’s not a question of if they’re going to occur, but when and how (“Stand down from Western wildfires,” HCN, 7/22/13). Biomass accumulates faster than it decomposes in generally dry Western ecosystems. Fire is nature’s way of balancing the equation. We have to completely rethink suppression, which only works when…
A review of Animal Crackers
Animal Crackers The Brothers Kraynak 48 pages, softcover: $19.95. The Brothers Kraynak, 2013. animalcrackersbook.wix.com/animal-crackers With its colorful illustrations and hand-lettered look, Animal Crackers resembles a children’s book — until you look more closely and realize it’s far from a soothing bedtime read. The Brothers Kraynak, Scott, a visual artist and park ranger, and his brother,…
A timeline of the desert tortoise’s slow and steady decline
Because the desert tortoise’s Mojave range is largely on federal land, conservationists believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) should have better managed the animal’s recovery once it was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1989. Instead, the species has steadily declined. 1976 Bureau of Land Management establishes 40-square-mile Desert Tortoise Natural Area in…
The ever-shrinking West
When the Endangered Species Act passed 40 years ago, I was a nerdy 13-year-old who subscribed to Audubon magazine. In my suburban Midwestern bedroom, I devoured pictures and stories of species that had gone extinct or were headed that way — the passenger pigeon, the Carolina parakeet, and my favorite, the mighty ivory-billed woodpecker. What…
The Latest: Mining claims halted in some areas
BackstoryBy mid-2011, more than 650 mining claims had been staked on the sites of proposed solar and wind projects on public land in the West — deliberate attempts, some say, to delay or halt renewable energy development (“BLM shields renewable projects from mining speculation,” HCN, 5/30/11). Mining claims trump surface rights, and if salable minerals…
Climate-forced water planning in Washington’s Yakima Valley
Prepping for future climate change means fixing past mistakes.
Conservation and affordable housing can coexist
I appreciated the nuanced description of Jackson’s affordable housing issues in “Paradise at a Price” (HCN, 6/10/13). I serve on the boards of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance and the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust, and both are concerned that some people may not read past the statement that “conservation goals collide with the need…
What’s wrong with this picture?
Firefighting consumes nearly half of the U.S. Forest Service’s budget (“Stand down from Western wildfires,” HCN, 7/22/13). Arguably, the bulk of this spending is necessitated by the presence of private structures in the wildland-urban interface. That these structures — which include many second homes — are often located in harm’s way is a deliberate lifestyle…
En-lightning statistics
Over two days in mid-July, an elderly Colorado woman, 10 farmworkers and three Montana hikers were hit by lightning — and lived to tell about it. Lightning fatalities in the U.S. have decreased by 75 percent since 1968, partly because of better medical access, more education and safer buildings, but largely because fewer Americans farm…
‘Firefighting is not war’
John Maclean’s statement that thousands of young firefighters go out every year with the “implicit” understanding that they will fight harder — and take greater risks — when homes are threatened concerns me (“Stand down from Western wildfires,” HCN, 7/22/13). Interagency fire programs have been trying to change that mentality; standards and orders have been…
Fracking fashionistas
Oil and gas workers once had few options for on-the-job fashion: standard street wear or heavy-duty firefighting gear. Flame-retardant clothing was bulky, expensive and hot, but the alternative — jeans and T-shirts — proved dangerous in environments where explosions and fires can be all in a day’s work. In 2010, the Occupational Safety and Health…
Ghost of a chance
We Live in WaterJess Walter192 pages, softcover: $14.99.Harper Perennial, 2013. In 13 sharp, witty stories, Spokane’s Jess Walter captures the gritty, quirky and heartbreaking lives of a variety of Pacific Northwesterners. Walter convincingly inhabits each character he creates, from a hungry meth addict wheeling an enormous TV toward a hoped-for pawnshop payout to a blue-collar…
Flume fever: a monument to gold mining history is reconstructed
A hanging flume, attached to a canyon wall, captures the imagination of locals and heritage tourists alike.
Sandy Gebhards and Sierra Crane-Murdoch on life in the oilfields
For many workers left jobless or underemployed after the economic recession of 2008, the domestic oil and gas boom now sweeping the U.S. seems like a quick ticket to high paying work. For the latest edition of Sounds of the High Country, KDNK’s ongoing collaboration with High Country News, KDNK’s Nelson Harvey spoke with Sandy…