Prescott and the Verde Valley fight out the future of one of the West’s last free-flowing streams.
Also in
this issue:
New Mexico looks to build its
border industry by attracting suppliers for Mexican manufacturers
across the border in Juarez.
Riveting and harrowing
I thought Ray Ring’s “Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields” was the finest piece of investigative journalism I’ve ever read in HCN (HCN, 4/2/07). And I certainly don’t recall reading anything remotely this good about the magnitude of the dangers workers in the oil and gas fields face, and the apparent indifference of…
The truth of Ring
Ray Ring’s HCN special report was one of the absolute best pieces of writing I’ve read in a long time (HCN, 4/2/07). I would pick up and read anything this man writes. Wonderful. Extraordinary. An awful beauty of truth. Eileen Baca Reno, Nevada This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the…
“The Jungle” of the West
I thought “Death in the Energy Fields” was fair, thorough and careful (HCN, 4/2/07). Through it, the many complex sides of what is going on were made clear to the reader. All the same, I came away thinking that we have to do better than this. In most industrial settings, the kind of safety shortfalls…
Dropping the ball on the Snowbowl
Many loyal readers in Flagstaff were deeply disappointed by HCN’s minimal (125 words) blurb about the recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision regarding the Arizona Snowbowl (HCN, 4/2/07). This was an amazing and significant decision with major consequences for land management throughout the West — and elsewhere. Snowbowl principal owner Eric Borowsky is already…
The challenge of climate-change denial
Reading the newspapers lately, you might get the impression that the once-strident climate-change deniers, doubters and skeptics are slowly becoming extinct. The New York Times recently called Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the most strident of Al Gore’s critics, “a dinosaur,” and few in the House or Senate even tried to counter Gore’s recent testimony on…
The need to remember Black Sunday
Is there any more fitting reminder that May 2 marked the 25th anniversary of “Black Sunday” than recent word that ExxonMobil wants to get back into the oil shale business? For all of you newcomers to the West — and to those of us who’ve spent 25 years trying to forget it — May 2,…
When the going gets tough, the tough collaborate
A few years ago, the walls of our brown-bricked town hall reverberated with the voices of citizens engaged in two of the region’s most constantly contentious issues: water and growth. A proposed subdivision promised to stretch Paonia’s water supply to the limit, and many folks thought that the town should not sell new water taps…
Tipping the scales towards native species
When biologist Phil Pister used buckets to rescue the last Owens pupfish from an evaporating pool, he knew that if he “tripped over a piece of barbed wire,” the species was history. Thirty-eight years later, the pupfish survives only because scientists move the fish pool-to-pool and constantly trap predators. In Unnatural Landscapes, Ceiridwen Terrill, a…
British writer tackles border politics
Make room on your bookshelf: Midnight Cactus will fit nicely between T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain and Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway. While Boyle provides a satiric fictional account of Southern California haves versus immigrant have-nots, and Urrea documents a deadly real-life journey across the border, British author Bella Pollen offers a lighter, though…
Two weeks in the West
James Doohan, the actor who played “Scotty” on Star Trek, always dreamed of traveling into space. Finally, on April 28, his dream came true. Doohan, along with astronaut Gordon Cooper and 200 others, blasted off in a rocket from the southern New Mexico desert, passed briefly into space and then parachuted back to Earth. For…
Wilderness Lost
My husband, Jay, and I planned our child’s outdoor life before he was conceived. We knew any child of ours would love to hike. How could he not? Spending time in the wilderness was fundamental to who we were. Jay and I have always connected with one another on the trail. Whenever we had troubles,…
Mirroring the maquila boom
New Mexico looks to build its border industry by attracting suppliers for Mexican manufacturers across the border in Juárez
Heard Around the West
OREGON Eugene’s annual used-book sale, organized by Friends of the Library, turned vicious last year, reports the Register-Guard. “Aggressive and boorish” Internet booksellers hired local people to wait in line, and when the doors opened, they swarmed in and threw sheets over tables, claiming every book. “It was over the top — it was savage,”…
Cow power
Entrepreneurs hope to cash in on Idaho dairy country’s stinky problem
A global warming reality check
I really appreciated your article about the plight of Phoenix (HCN, 4/16/07). I think it is clear that climate shifting is occurring rapidly. Rather than arguing about the causes and about how to diminish carbon burning, it seems more fruitful to look at the anticipated consequences, and develop reasonable policy, behavioral and legislative responses. Even…
Keep up with the buzz
I’ve been reading about beekeeping problems lately, but nobody has produced such a detailed personal account (HCN, 3/19/07). I live in avocado country in San Diego, Calif., and ride the area on my motorcycle often. I can see far fewer bees working, and there are far fewer on my windshield (always sad). Now we hear…
“An iconoclastic sociologist”
In his review of Jim Stiles’ book Brave New West, Brian Kevin attempts to defend the “Lycra-clad masses” and wonders why Stiles doesn’t address more print to erosion and species loss (HCN, 4/16/07). Stiles does discuss erosion and species loss, but that is not his focus in this book. Kevin fails to appreciate the fact…
Imagine there’s no terrorists
David Oates has us happily swimming in the ocean of his imaginative approach to teaching literature to college kids (HCN, 4/16/07). That’s for the first five paragraphs. Then he pulls the plug and leaves us high and dry, blistered by his attack on the current federal administration for its, to him, lack of imagination. In…
The Battle for the Verde
Will a new pipeline dry up one of the West’s last free-flowing streams?
Dear friends
PARTY IN PAONIA You’re invited to a High Country News potluck party for readers, board members and staff. As a special treat, some of our former interns will also be in town for the first-ever HCN intern reunion. Join us on Saturday, June 9, 6 p.m., at the town park in Paonia, Colo. Please bring…
Saving the Sierra, tale by tale
NAMES: jesikah maria ross, Catherine Stifter PROJECT: Saving the Sierra: Voices of Conservation in Action RÉSUMÉ EXCERPTS: Stifter: Two Peabody awards for independent radio productions; firefighter, EMT, and water truck driver for North San Juan volunteer fire department; lives off the grid in solar-powered cabin. ross: UNICEF youth radio project in Ethiopia; community media projects…