The Environmental Protection Agency was recently reprimanded for its regulation of drinking water and the selection process it uses to select candidates for contaminant regulation. On the bright side, the agency is trying to ensure rural water systems pass muster. The Government Accountability Office just gave EPA officials a scolding for their inabilityto assess which […]
Kimberly Hirai
Posted inGoat
Livid over livestock
Just 18 months ago, ranchers effectively defeated a voluntary federal program to trace disease among their livestock. Now U.S. Department of Agriculture officials are coming back to the traceability table with mandatory interstate livestock trade regulations they hope will kick disease out of the barn and are improved enough to overcome rancher resistance. The agriculture […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Welcome, new interns!
Two new interns have just joined our editorial department for six months of “journalism boot camp” here in Paonia, Colo. “I was the shy nerd in school,” says Kimberly Hirai of Boise, Idaho. When she and her brother ordered pizza as kids, they fought over who had to talk on the phone. She’s more outgoing […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Biochar makeover for abandoned mines?
Abandoned mines — about 31,000 of them — linger like ghosts on the West’s public lands. It’s harder to find exact numbers for old mines on private land, but Colorado, for example, has about 14,000, compared to 3,299 public-land sites. In the San Juan Mountains, water from snowmelt and rainfall picks up mining remnants like […]
Posted inGoat
Proposed Alaska dam pushes state to examine hydropower options
Corrected August 5, 2011, 2:53 p.m. Mile 184 on the Susitna River halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks may look a little different in 12 years. Imagine a 700-foot high dam with a reservoir 39 miles long. That’s what could be there if the proposed $4.5 billion Susitna-Watana hydroelectric project secures permits and financing. The project […]
Posted inGoat
How much should hunters with ATVs be regulated?
The hunters stalked their game for hours, carefully taking note of scat and tracks the herd left behind. They hunted on foot through the West’s backcountry wilds, through brush and over mountains. A rumble in the distance sounded like the characteristic clap of a Rocky Mountain thunderstorm. It spooked the elk. Over the hill emerged […]
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Boats vs. birds
Protesters armed with posters opposing a ban on fishing, canoeing, boating and other recreation paraded 200 boats in a “Death of Recreation Parade” July 9. Locals worried about Idaho’s Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge’s proposed comprehensive conservation plan were demonstrating to express concern that the new plan would limit their recreational pursuits and the industries […]
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After Yellowstone River oil spill, domestic water well testing trickles in
When nearly 42,000 of gallons of crude oil rushed down the Yellowstone River July 1, the Environmental Protection Agency said its first concern was human health. Individuals and communities downstream of the spill who have long used it as a clean drinking water source must now await results as the agency tests their wells for […]