An environmentalist who owns royalty interest in New Mexico oil and gas wells heads down to the San Juan Basin to talk to rancher Tweeti Blancett, driller Tom Dugan and others about the moral complexities inherent in Americans’ energy use.
Also in this issue: Kern County, Calif., is trying to prevent Los Angeles sludge from entering the county, where it is used to fertilize farmland, and the resulting stink is raising all kinds of questions about how we handle human waste.
Two weeks in the West
“People will go to any length to have these things in their possession. It’s big antlers and big egos.” — Jim Kropp, chief of wildlife law enforcement in Montana, on a wave of trophy game poaching that’s alarmed officials and angered licensed hunters in Montana, Nevada and other Western states. Mobsters or federal employees —…
Excremental gains?
A stink over ‘sludge’ raises larger questions
Shear Pleasure
As the eighth red-headed slut slid down my throat, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. I was merely trying to keep up with my new friends, a group of traveling sheepshearers from New Zealand. But they kept buying round after round at the Sawmill Saloon in Darby, Mont. “Shearing’s a hobby,”…
Time for an attitude adjustment
As a fellow Unitarian Universalist, I am puzzled and dismayed by Chris Wallace’s shortsighted and selfish attitude toward paying fees to use nearby U.S. Forest Service lands (HCN, 11/27/06). It seems to me that the no-fee movement is akin to the property-rights movement, as in “I own this land and I can do with it…
Truth, lies and falcons
In the “Bred For Success” article, author Stephanie Paige Ogburn perpetuates a common myth when she writes, “A well-trained falcon brings the catch (prey) uneaten to its master, who rewards it with food” (HCN, 11/13/06). Sheer fallacy: Falcons serve no master and they don’t retrieve. In comparing released aplomado falcons to an “annual crop of…
The very model of a modern collaboration
On behalf of the Forest Guild, a national association of professional foresters with deep roots in community forestry, I would like to comment on Peter Friederici’s article “Peace Breaks Out in New Mexico’s Forests” (HCN, 10/30/06). The Forest Guild was one of the collaborators on the Rowe Mesa Collaborative Forest Restoration Project (CFRP) referred to…
It’s getting better all the time
As a longtime subscriber, I have observed a marked uplift in the artistic level of the photography used to illustrate articles in the past year or so. The Oct. 30 issue was a new zenith, with two articles illustrated by Jared Boyd, “Just Another Giddyup” and “Peace Breaks Out in New Mexico’s Forests.” The photos,…
Of salvage logging and salvation
Salvage is a word that is much in the air these days, not just in the woods, but also in the lecture halls of universities and in the marble corridors of Washington, D.C. It is a word of power, a soothing word implying many virtues: prudence and profit, rescue and redemption, both exploitation and, somehow,…
Chickens are roosting on private property in Oregon
Oregon’s infamous Ballot Measure 37 created an old-fashioned land rush as property owners, developers and opportunists raced to file claims for compensation before the recent deadline. An estimated 3,600 claims were filed, and it’s possible that the last-minute rush added 1,000 more. The total cost of the claims may top $7 billion, though no one…
A corps of visitors, not discoverers
In Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes, the late historian and journalist Alvin Josephy assembles nine weakly linked essays by 10 Indian writers. A few essays are solid; some are tough to get through. But together they should enable the Anglo reader to pass through the looking glass, as Alice did in Lewis Carroll’s classic,…
I fell into a burning ring of fire
Some people seek gentle hands to soothe knots from sore muscles. Others get a facial or a pedicure. Still others hold hands and hum around a vortex. In today’s world of indulgence-for-hire and guided leisure, you can practice yoga, Pilates, Nia. Screw that, I say. Play with fire. There’s something restorative about lighting a glowing…
Heard around the West
CANADA AND IDAHO Spurred by global warming or just plain wanderlust, a female polar bear and a male grizzly got together six years ago for what Borat would call “sexy-time.” What the encounter produced might be dubbed a “pizzly” or a “grolarbear.” The male hybrid was shot earlier this year on a remote Arctic island…
Tequila-fueled tunes
Name Roger Clyne Age 38 Vocation Front man for the Tempe, Arizona, band Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. The Peacemakers are made up of Clyne, P.H. Naffah on drums, Steve Larson on guitar, and Nick Scropos on bass. Also markets his own brand of tequila. Known For The band’s high-energy live shows and Southwestern sound.…
Slipping into the holidays
More than a foot of snow fell in our hometown of Paonia the week after Thanksgiving. It was fluffy, “powder dry” stuff to begin with, but after a week of sub-freezing temperatures, not to mention sub-par snow removal efforts, it turned into dense sheets of ice on the town’s sidewalks and streets. Geology students from…
Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Faustian bargains in the gas fields of New Mexico’s San Juan Basin
Dear friends
HCN TAKES A HOLIDAY Thanks to all of our readers and friends who attended our annual holiday open house on Dec. 6. As we always do this time of year, HCN staffers are taking a two-week break to sing carols, swill wassail and celebrate the holiday with family and friends. The next issue of HCN…