Earthjustice is best-known for the free legal services it provides for environmental causes. But its lawyers know how to pick songs as well as witnesses, as the organization’s recently released CD shows. Titled Where We Live, proceeds from the album benefit a campaign for “the universal right to clean air and clean water” that includes […]
Jodi Peterson
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 […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
A city we can live with
If you’re reading this in a café within walking distance of work and home, and there’s a park or greenbelt area nearby, you can count yourself lucky: You live in a well-designed city. In Toward the Livable City, Emilie Buchwald gathers together 16 contributors, whose essays and art entice us toward the antidote to suburban […]
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Are mountain lions in danger of disappearing?
The West’s mountain lions are being hunted right out of their habitat
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Defense company turns from rockets to real estate
CALIFORNIA Aerospace and defense company GenCorp has big plans for a former rocket-testing site east of Sacramento: Turn part of it into a subdivision. The company wants to build offices, stores, and 3,800 houses and apartments in the 1,400-acre Easton development. The new development will cover more than a tenth of a 13,000-acre site where […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Heroes for the wild
Know someone who’s worked tirelessly to protect the West’s wild places? Nominate him or her for a “Wilderness Hero” award. The program, which began last year, will honor two volunteers each month leading up to the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act this September. Award sponsors include The Campaign for America’s Wilderness, the Sierra Club, […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Can’t we all just get along
“Mud wrestling” might be the best term for what happens when we try to hash out messy environmental issues, says a recent report from the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado-Boulder. But the West is full of talented scientists who can help pull us out of the ring if we’d just […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Salmon get a break from pesticides
WEST COAST Protection for the Northwest’s salmon just took a major leap forward. In a landmark ruling, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour banned the use of 38 pesticides near streams that host threatened and endangered runs of salmon and steelhead in Washington, Oregon and California. The ruling follows a July 2002 decision, in which Judge […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Rollbacks on the range
NATION To help public-lands ranchers and “preserve open space,” the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans to revise its nine-year-old grazing regulations. Some say those changes will let cattlemen ride roughshod over public lands. In 1995, President Clinton’s Interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, overhauled the rules that control ranching on public lands (HCN, 04/17/95: Back to […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
No place for pesky nuclear waste
NEW MEXICO If an energy company and a Republican senator get their way, southern New Mexico will get even hotter than its habañeros. The European-owned company LES plans to build a facility near Eunice to produce nuclear reactor fuel, but it still doesn’t have anywhere to store the highly toxic, radioactive byproduct (HCN, 10/13/03: New […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Big cats on the block
In The Beast in the Garden, David Baron weaves a compelling parable of man and animal, of the Old West and the New West, of wildlife that is no longer wild. Looking back at the history of mountain lions in Boulder County, Colo., over the past 150 years, he writes about our changing relationship with […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Indian poll power
How many American Indian voters does it take to elect an official? The answer should matter to every candidate in this election year, since American Indian votes could swing elections in districts throughout Montana, South Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona. NativeVote 2004, spearheaded by the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), an organization of […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Dear Friends
COLORADO INTERNS Colorado native and high-tech refugee Jodi Peterson has decided to write about her passion, the beautiful but threatened American West. After 15 years of penning online help and users’ guides for Hewlett-Packard, she has taken a sabbatical to become an intern at HCN. Now, Jodi looks forward to the freedom of writing without […]
Posted inNovember 24, 2003: New Mexico goes head-to-head with a nuclear juggernaut
The BLM is blowing in the wind
It’s no secret that the Bush administration is pushing for increased oil and gas development across the West. But one often-overlooked recommendation of Bush’s National Energy Policy calls for greater reliance on sources of renewable energy, such as the sun and wind. In response, the Bureau of Land Management is studying the prospects for developing […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Ready, set, vote
George Bush and Howard Dean aren’t the only ones gearing up for the 2004 election — grassroots organizers across the country are getting ready, too. A coalition called America Votes plans to link grassroots groups to pump up election-day turnout. Sixteen organizations, ranging from the AFL-CIO and ACORN to the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood, […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 2003: The West's Biggest Bully
Being rich isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
“It’s not easy being rich” — especially when you’re rich in natural resources. So says a new report from the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder, explaining why the West is smack-dab in the middle of the nation’s energy fight. The report, What Every Westerner Should Know About Energy, […]
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Looking out for the little guys
From its roots as a scrappy, garage-band-style environmental group, the Paonia, Colorado-based Center for Native Ecosystems has become a voice for the kind of endangered species often overlooked by other conservation groups. The center has championed such unlikely species as Graham’s penstemon, a wildflower threatened by oil and gas development, the boreal toad and the […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
Healthy energy on public lands
Wind turbines and solar panels may be coming soon to a national forest near you. According to a new report, there are plenty of opportunities to develop renewable energy on millions of acres of federal land in the West. In Assessing the Potential for Renewable Energy on Public Lands, the Bureau of Land Management and […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Dear friends
WELCOME, NEW INTERNS As a teenager, HCN summer intern Patrick Farrell says he spent summers in his hometown of Lincoln, Neb., “scheming ways to get to Colorado to rock climb.” Lured by his love of nature, he moved West to study history at the University of Washington — but spent “more time in the library […]