My husband claims not to believe in the “end times” and all that, but I’m not sure I trust his denials. How else, other than a firm belief in a coming apocalypse, to explain his obsession with firewood? Never mind that we live in Cortez, Colo., on the fringe of the desert, in a home […]
Gail Binkly
Posted inApril 27, 2009: Got warriors?
Coming to blows
Tribal infighting delays Navajo wind development
Posted inWotr
Hypocrisy on the road
I?ll always remember the evening a candidate for local political office, an environmentally minded and intelligent citizen whom I liked and admired, passed me on the highway between Cortez, Colo., and Mancos. I was traveling somewhere between 60 and 65 mph, my usual cruising speed. He blew by me — passing over a double yellow […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Dust in the wind
On Sept. 14, 1930, a strange dirt cloud swirled out of Kansas into the Texas Panhandle. Weathermen dismissed it as an oddity, but it marked the beginning of the worst long-term environmental disaster the United States has ever known — the Dust Bowl. That bleak period is chronicled in The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan’s […]
Posted inApril 3, 2006: Land of Disenchantment
Casinos coming to Navajo Nation
After resisting the Indian-gaming trend for decades, the Navajo Nation now plans to build up to six casinos within its borders beginning this year. Twice, in 1994 and 1997, tribal members voted against gambling initiatives. Critics expressed concerns that state gaming compacts might undermine tribal sovereignty and that casinos would encourage social ills such as […]
Posted inWotr
Who’s afraid of the big bad dog?
Shock waves are still spreading over the news that last November, a Canadian was apparently killed by wolves. The conservationist mantra has always been that healthy wolves don’t kill humans. But in this case, which happened in Saskatchewan, evidence indicates that they did: A 22-year-old man was found mauled and partially eaten in an area […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Doubling density near Durango
After two decades of trying to hold the line against an increase in oil and gas drilling, commissioners in La Plata County recently signed deals allowing two energy companies to double the density of coalbed methane wells near Durango. Now that the companies’ infill applications have been approved by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
The restoration will not be televised
In nature, there is neither right or wrong — only consequences. The truth of that is demonstrated in After the Fires: The Ecology of Change in Yellowstone National Park. The wildfires that swept Yellowstone in 1988 were the first prime-time forest fires, according to the book. Television viewers stared aghast at the raging flames and […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Bringing back the wolf = bringing back the habitat
The wolf today inspires polarized emotions. It is viewed by some as a slavering, rapacious killing machine; by others, as the noble symbol of a lost wilderness. In the fascinating Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone, biologist Douglas Smith and nature writer Gary Ferguson seek to sort myth from reality. They describe […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Forcing nomads to farm — the Utes’ sad story
In “The Utes Must Go!” Peter R. Decker explores how fear-mongering politicians and settlers suppressed the Ute bands in the 1800s
Posted inNovember 22, 2004: Conservationist in a Conservative Land
EPA pulls back on fish-killing rule change
A little attention from the media helped thwart an attempt by the federal government to do a favor for the mining industry at the expense of fish and birds. In question is the metal selenium, which is a byproduct of coal- and phosphate-mining, copper-smelting and agriculture. At low levels, selenium is an essential nutrient for […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
Communities search for a safer way to kill mosquitoes
West Nile virus brings a long-simmering controversy to a boil
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Seeing the forest for its dead trees
Until piñon pines began dying by the millions across the Southwest a few years ago — victims of drought and voracious bark beetles — few people gave much thought to the gnarled, scrubby trees or the delicate ecosystem that supported them. Even now, attention is focused on the piñons mainly as a wildfire hazard rather […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Dam’s price tag skyrockets
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Water ‘holy war’ rages in central Utah.” After decades of rancorous debate, construction is under way on the Animas-La Plata dam project in dusty southwestern Colorado (HCN, 8/27/01: A-LP gets federal A-OK). But anyone who thought the […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
New Mexico: A nuclear homeland?
With open arms, New Mexico’s politicians welcome a new uranium-enrichment plant
Posted inSeptember 15, 2003: The West's Biggest Bully
Showdown at the Four Corners
Visitors to the Southwest know the Four Corners Monument as a bleak, dusty site that tourists flee once they’ve snapped a photo on the slab where four states come together. But that could all change with a proposed $4 million expansion project. Four years ago, Congress authorized $2 million to build an interpretive center, permanent […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Developer tries to make a killing off the Black Canyon
Notorious for snapping up private inholdings surrounded by federal land and then reselling them for big profits, Colorado developer Tom Chapman is at it again. Chapman made a name for himself in 1992, when he used a helicopter to carry building supplies for a luxury cabin into a 240-acre inholding within the West Elk Wilderness […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
When did we become such gear-toting wimps?
When I read that the Outdoor Industry Association threatened to move its biannual gear show out of Salt Lake City as a protest against Utah’s wilderness policies, I was taken aback. Not by the announcement, but by the reported magnitude of the show: 15,000 visitors spending $24 million in the region to pore over high-tech […]
Posted inWotr
When did we become outdoor wimps needing so much stuff?
When I read that the Outdoor Industry Association threatened to move its biannual gear show out of Salt Lake City as a protest against Utah’s wilderness policies, I was taken aback. Not by the announcement, but by the reported magnitude of the show: 15,000 visitors spending $24 million in the region to pore over high-tech […]