The 300-square-mile Pinedale Anticline in western Wyoming has been called America’s Serengeti. It’s crucial winter range for mule deer and pronghorn antelope, and is a sage grouse stronghold. But it’s got riches below ground too – the third largest natural gas reserve in the United States. Development of the gas reserve has been underway for […]
Cally Carswell
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Western Climate Initiative moves forward, smaller than imagined
The toxic politics of cap-and-trade
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Not quite so SAD
Since at least 2004, sudden aspen decline, or SAD for short, has killed trees in five Western states in sweeping fashion. By 2008, in Colorado alone, more than a half million acres were afflicted. But after a few wet, cool years, the fatal phenomenon is finally relenting. “We’re pretty sure that the drought in 2002 […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Snapshot of an election
This article is a sidebar that accompanies the news story, Western elections wrap-up Alarm bells rang early this year when the Supreme Court lifted key restrictions on corporate political spending. The decision gave corporations and unions the right to spend unlimited amounts to explicitly campaign for or against candidates, and allowed independent interest groups to […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2010: Dr. No
Coal reality check
It’s a risky time to invest in coal. Production was down almost 8 percent in 2009, and consumption fell even further. Environmentalists have fought new coal-fired power plants tooth and nail — and won. Some plants are already planning a switch to natural gas. Meanwhile, the shape of future federal carbon regulation, a looming threat […]
Posted inGoat
The morning after
The Tea Party didn’t take the West Tuesday night. Power did shift to the right, as it did nationwide, but not dramatically. In New Mexico, Republican Steve Pearce took his House seat back from Harry Teague, but the state’s other two Democratic congressional incumbents held on. The GOP gained two seats in the House in […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
Solar spree
In early October, the Interior Department gave its blessing to three solar energy projects in California’s sun-saturated Mojave Desert and Imperial Valley, and one in the Nevada desert. The approvals — the first ever on federal public land — came five years after the agency opened public deserts in the Southwest to solar development. A […]
Posted inGoat
Shale games
Between 1.2 and 1.8 trillion barrels of oil sit in shale deposits in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. For years oil companies have been looking for a commercially viable way to unlock all that petroleum, to no avail. “No matter how high the price of crude oil went,” Hal Clifford reported for HCN in 2002, “shale […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
Frack forward
Wyoming’s fed-bucking approach to environmental policy
Posted inArticles
High Country Views: Fire in the foothills
HCN’s podcast looks at the aftermath of Colorado’s most destructive wildfire
Posted inGoat
Deconstructing Lisa
It’s official: The Tea Party toppled Lisa Murkowski. On Tuesday, the Alaska incumbent conceded the state’s Republican U.S. Senate primary to staunch anti-government challenger Joe Miller, the state’s newest overnight political sensation. (Take note, Harry Reid.) Murkowski was the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Her loss will shake-up that important […]
Posted inGoat
On the radio
Laura Paskus was recently interviewed about her story “The life and death of Desert Rock” on KVNF, Paonia’s community radio station, by former HCN intern Ariana Brocious. Take a listen below, or check out an interview Laura did with KUNM in Albuquerque. Listen here!
Posted inGoat
One step forward, one step back
“We suck at managing exempt wells,” Michael ‘Aquadoc’ Campana bluntly declared on his blog late last year. Water experts across the West likely nodded in agreement. And last week, even Montana regulators owned up to this shortcoming. The state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation acknowledged that subdivision developers were exploiting a loophole in state […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
Crude combat
Enviros seek leverage to curb Canadian tar sands development
Posted inGoat
One tough trout
Here’s the bad news: No fish has ever made it off the endangered species list without going extinct. And the good news: the Apache trout, an Arizona native, may soon become the first. Soon, in this case, is a relative term. The trout’s imminent delisting has been reported since at least 2007, but before it […]