Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Moab: On the horns of a recreation dilemma.” In western Colorado, the Bureau of Land Management has tackled the issue of dueling recreationists head-on, and come up with a plan that gives each user group room to […]
Jodi Peterson
Posted inMay 16, 2005: Unsalvageable
Dear friends
WELCOME, JASON HCN has a new development associate to help with raising money, planning events and board meetings, and producing a newsletter for former interns. Jason Nicholoff, the eldest son of Circulation Manager Gretchen Nicholoff, grew up in Paonia. After graduating from Ohio’s Oberlin College with an English degree, he did environmental work and grant-writing […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Dear friends
ANIMAL PLANET Here in Paonia, we’ve been having various critter adventures. JoAnn Kalenak, our production assistant, recently adopted a beagle named Darcy. In mid-March, though, the dog disappeared while chasing rabbits. Three weeks later, a neighbor called to say that Darcy had been vacationing at her farm a few miles away the entire time. Meanwhile, […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
As threats loom, conservation dollars disappear
Feds back away from buying sensitive land
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Dear friends
TRAGEDY IN PAONIA HCN’s home town, Paonia, Colo., population 1,500, is grieving for three children killed in an explosion at a mountain lodge outside of town. At least 16 others were injured in the March 19 blast, which was probably caused by a propane leak. Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee identified the children as 2-year-old […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
From folk singer to fierce activist — the life of Katie Lee
Among desert rats and river lovers, folk singer and activist Katie Lee is legendary. A Hollywood actress in her youth, Lee started running Southwestern rivers in her 30s and became an outspoken defender of her beloved Colorado River. She fought the damming of Glen Canyon, and celebrated its beauty and mourned its loss in All […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2004: Where Do We Go From Here?
A problem any city would love to have
Boulderites have poured money into protecting open space — now they want to use it
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Dang crazy women
Like the two previous anthologies created by editors Linda Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier and Nancy Curtis, Leaning into the Wind and Woven on the Wind, Crazy Woman Creek gathers hundreds of poems, stories and memories from women all across the West. This latest anthology’s theme is how Western women create and sustain the connections that define […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 2004: When a Boom is a Bust
The wages of sprawl
A new documentary, Making Sense of Place: Phoenix, the Urban Desert, uses the Arizona megalopolis to illustrate what happens when suburban sprawl goes unchecked. Historical and current footage shows how cheap land and even cheaper water have encouraged Phoenix to sprawl over more than 1,700 square miles of Sonoran desert. But the resulting generic suburbs, […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Public lands lifeline
Wading through the vast web of laws and policies that govern our public lands can be confusing even for lawyers, let alone for ordinary citizens. Even commenting on a Bureau of Land Management resource management plan, which guides grazing, mining, oil and gas drilling, and off-road vehicle use, can be daunting. But The Wilderness Society […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Will a mining-reform victory hold water in Nevada?
Long-term cleanup trust fund may get shortchanged
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
An antidote to despair
Chip Ward’s first book, Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West, was decidedly grim, detailing his fight to keep the deserts of Utah from becoming a dump for toxins ranging from radioactive waste to defunct biochemical weapons. His new book, Hope’s Horizon, gives us a brighter view of recent environmental battles, taking an […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
New rules coming down for off-roaders
Cross-country travel will be banned in most areas, but enforcement may be next to impossible
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
BLM gags an archaeologist to get out the gas
Critics say a slew of new projects could endanger Indian rock art and ruins
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
Oceans need a sea change
It’s time to wake up and smell the salt water. According to a recent report from the United States Commission on Ocean Policy, America’s oceans are overfished, polluted and in desperate need of new management policies. After three years of study, the President Bush-appointed commission came up with more than 200 preliminary recommendations aimed at […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Toxic chemical creeping toward Colorado River
CALIFORNIA, ARIZONA Chromium 6, the toxic element made infamous by the movie Erin Brockovich, is back in the news. In Southern California and central Arizona, water officials fear that the chemical might contaminate drinking water for some 20 million people, as it creeps toward the Colorado River from a pump station on a natural gas […]
Posted inMay 24, 2004: In Search of Solidarity
Souvenir or sacred artifact?
Stealing from Indians didn’t end in the 19th century: Many sacred American Indian masks, pipes and other ceremonial artifacts still find their way into private collections. However, according to the American Indian Ritual Object Repatriation Foundation, most of these items properly belong to Indian tribes. The Repatriation Foundation got its start in 1992, after an […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Report unearths the high cost of mining
If you drive a car, wear jewelry, or use a cell phone, you use the products of mineral mining. But mining for aluminum, gold, and other metals exacts a steep toll in damage to ecosystems and human health. A recent report from Earthworks and Oxfam America, Dirty Metals: Mining, Communities and the Environment, details the […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Small steps for wilderness
Arizona activists shop for wilderness by congressional district
Posted inApril 26, 2004: Outsourced
Drought forces Las Vegas to reach deeper for water
NEVADA Remember shoving your straw deeper into a pop bottle to slurp out those elusive last drops? Faced with the fifth year of drought, the Southern Nevada Water Authority plans to do something similar in Lake Mead, which supplies drinking water to Las Vegas and surrounding areas. Water officials are hurrying to extend an intake […]