In 1969, the Atomic Energy Commission exploded an underground nuclear bomb in western Colorado; today, the site of Project Rulison is attracting natural gas drillers.
Also in this Issue: David Tenny of the Department of Agriculture has used his discretionary powers to alter the master plan for Colorado’s White River National Forest, lessening its protections for water and wildlife.
HCN wants more drought?
I was startled, shocked, and horrified at the final sentence of the Editor’s Note (HCN, 1/24/05: Who’ll Stop the Rain?). Does the publisher really hope that a severe drought becomes more severe? A more severe drought could have devastating effects on people’s lives, perhaps causing famine and death. Do the people of the West need…
Drought will come, regardless
I need to fine-tune your editor’s note on long-term drought (HCN, 1/24/05: Who’ll stop the rain?), I’m sure that you folks have heard about the tree stumps in Lake Tahoe. They are over 100 years old and reveal to us that drought has been here in our recent past and it lasted for a very…
Forty-four years of poetry from the Land of Enchantment
I’m engaged to New Mexico. I’ve been engaged for eighteen years. I’ve worn its ring of rainbow set with a mica shard. I’ve given my dowry already, my skin texture, my hair moisture. I’ve given New Mexico my back-East manners, my eyesight, The arches of my feet. New Mexico’s a difficult fiancé. —excerpt from “Something…
Is Preble’s just another meadow mouse?
After finally scoring a place on the endangered species list, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse may have to hop back off it. Nine inches long, the Preble’s mouse inhabits streamside meadows along the rapidly developing urban corridor from Colorado Springs to Cheyenne (HCN, 8/30/99: Can the Preble’s mouse trap growth on Colorado’s Front Range?). In…
On the dark side of the park: a ranger’s memoir
Park ranger Jordan Fisher Smith dreamed of a career in Yosemite or Grand Teton, but fate led him to California’s Auburn State Recreation Area, a place he calls “the inverse of Yellowstone.” During his 14 years as a ranger in the canyons of the American River, the long-planned Auburn Dam loomed over the place, always…
Bees don’t grow on trees
Honeybees are in trouble, and so are the farmers who rely on them to pollinate an estimated one-third of the human diet — everything from almond and fruit trees to cantaloupes and cucumbers. Tom Theobald, who owns Niwot Honey Farm outside Boulder, Colo., says 30 percent of his bees died this year. Other beekeepers say…
Western Voices: 125 years of Colorado Writing
Western Voices: 125 years of Colorado Writing Edited by Steve Grinstead and Ben Fogelberg 396 pages, softcover $19.95. Fulcrum Press, 2004. Editors from the Colorado Historical Society chose the essays in this diverse collection, and they chose well. There’s Muriel Sibell Wolle describing the intense two-year lifespan of a mining town too high to endure…
Tribe close to sharing federal bison refuge
Unless Congress derails a deal that took years to negotiate, on March 15, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will take over 10 of the 19 jobs at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Bison Range Complex. And the tribes will begin sharing management of 26,000 federal acres north of Missoula, where hundreds of…
The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror
The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror David W. Orr, 172 pages, hardcover $20. Island Press, 2004. David Orr, professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College, explains how our centralized, industrialized, corporate way of life makes us more vulnerable to acts of terrorism. But he offers a…
Dogs could chase big cats again
A bill that would let hunters use dogs to chase down cougars is circulating in the Oregon state Legislature, pitting animal rights activists against hunters. In 1994, Oregon voters passed a ballot measure banning the use of hounds in cougar hunts. Dozens of subsequent efforts to weaken or repeal the measure have all failed. “I…
As if We Were Grownups: A Collection of ‘Suicidal’ Political Speeches That Aren’t
As if We Were Grownups: A Collection of “Suicidal” Political Speeches That Aren’t Jeff Golden, 147 pages, softcover $12. Riverwood Books, 2004. Sick of endless political spin? Oregon writer Jeff Golden is, too. He makes the case that politicians need to treat voters like adults and tell us the difficult truth, even if it’s not…
Eliza Murphy captures the West
I would like to commend HCN on running Eliza Murphy’s story, “The Asphalt Graveyard,” as the cover story (HCN, 2/7/05: Caught in the Headlights). I’m embarrassed to say I had never thought much about roadkill before meeting Eliza, last year at the University of Montana’s Environmental Writing Institute. I was struck then, as I am…
A member of the roadkill community
The cover of HCN caught my eye as I sorted through the mail yesterday evening. I opened it and began reading Eliza Murphy’s article, “The Asphalt Graveyard,” while putting away groceries (HCN, 2/7/05: Caught in the Headlights). I was so gripped by it that I didn’t make it to the dining table but just spread…
Remedies for roadkill
The misty-eyed author of “The Asphalt Graveyard” (HCN, 2/7/05: Caught in the Headlights) apparently does not realize that not only have paved highways, numbers of vehicles, and speed increased over the past number of years, but so have the numbers of large animals. Elk have increased almost exponentially in Arizona’s mountains, and deer populations throughout…
Drought + Population Growth = Disaster
Regarding Matt Jenkins’ otherwise excellent article, “A crisis brews on the Colorado”: To talk about water without discussion of population growth is a bit like planning a wedding reception without knowing how many guests will be there — doomed to failure (HCN, 1/24/05: A crisis brews on the Colorado). I am a firm believer in…
Fire story left out the locals
“Keepers of the Flame,” the title of the Nov. 8, 2004, High Country News cover story, is a religious allusion in harmony with the devotional tone of the article. While professors from North Carolina and Washington are granted a few lines to caution that not all forests are alike, no one offers any criticism of…
Immigration is the real issue
In “Taking the West Forward,” you bashed both the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress over energy policy and their perceived failure to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, but you failed to even mention the driving force behind increasing energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, namely immigration (HCN, 12/6/04: Taking the West Forward). The increase…
Who’ll stop the burn?
It is unfortunate that Adam Burke did not stop in Kingston, N.M., and talk to any New Mexicans who have looked critically at the Gila National Forest’s “fire use” policy (HCN, 11/8/04: Keepers of the Flame). In Kingston he might have been shown other effective techniques employed by Toby Richards, in response to community concerns,…
HCN editors love what they do
Considering my family’s long connection to High Country News, I’m rather embarrassed to admit that I’ve only recently subscribed. I guess mountain state politics just make me so angry I didn’t care to be reminded of them. It’s gratifying to see a new generation of journalists take up the cause of truthfully reporting on Western…
Turning back the clock
I owe my career in the Forest Service to woman pioneers such as Wendy Herrett (HCN, 12/6/04: Transforming the Forest Service: Maverick bureaucrat Wendy Herrett). Yet I disagree that discrimination has ended and that ecosystem-based approaches are valued. I joined the Forest Service in 1983. I was the first female in a research management position.…
Political appointee slashes forest protections
White River National Forest may lose safeguards for water and rare wildcat
Forest Service employees and activist face racketeering charges
Developers’ attempt to silence critics of condo project could make history
Easterners tilt at windmills while Westerners joust with a real foe
While Wyoming ranchers and hunters are facing off with gas companies eager to drill their rangelands and hunting grounds, Massachusetts lobster barons are facing their own showdown with an energy juggernaut. Has the West found an ally in Eastern blue bloods and politicians such as Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.? Not exactly. In Wyoming’s Powder River…
Small tribe in Idaho weighs big water deal
Nez Perce will decide whether a $193 million package does enough for salmon
Ready… fire… aim!
A decade into a massive energy boom, the West decides it’s time to deal with the impacts on the land, air, water and wildlife
State laws — and small staff — muzzle would-be watchdog
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant.” The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, charged with overseeing energy development in the state, is conflicted. The commission’s mission is to facilitate oil and gas production. At the same time, it is supposed to protect the public’s…
Whose rules rule on Otero Mesa?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant.” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, D, knows who his friends are. In 2003, speaking before the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, he told the assembled governors and industry bigwigs that they built his state’s budget surplus. And…
Wastewater goes unwatched
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant.” On an average day in Wyoming, energy companies drill nine new wells to pull methane gas out of the state’s coal beds. In 1995, the state had 427 coalbed methane wells. Now, the total is more than 21,000,…
Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant
In Colorado, a gas company edges in on a radioactive blast site
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA Every time you turn around, the members of some worthy organization are shedding their clothes to pose nude for a calendar. The fun is in the photography, because while the librarians or firefighters may be naked, they are always strategically hidden behind some fire hose, book or fence. In Carmel, Calif., a group called…
Energy without hypocrisy
I have a confession to make: I like natural gas. Every morning at five minutes before 6:00, I wake up to the gentle whumph of the gas heater kicking on in the family room. I then get out of bed, tap on my son’s door and call, “Time to get up,” and plant myself in…
Dear friends
BOMBS AWAY! This issue’s cover story mentions Project Plowshare, the federal government’s campaign, during the 1960s and early ’70s, to find “peaceful” uses for nuclear bombs. Longtime HCN subscriber Chuck Worley of Cedaredge, Colo., remembers it well: Worley, now 87, and his former plumbing partner, the late Fred Smith, protested the use of nuclear bombs…
Follow-up
The Union of Concerned Scientists is concerned again — this time, about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Union, a nonprofit coalition of scientists and citizens, has released the results of its survey of Fish and Wildlife Service employees: Forty-four percent say they have been told, “for non-scientific reasons,” to refrain from making findings…