How much should energy developers plan for natural disaster?
Krista Langlois
Krista Langlois is a former High Country News fellow and correspondent, and longtime freelance journalist. From her home on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast, she writes and edits stories about biodiversity and the more-than-human world for bioGraphic magazine. Find her on Bluesky @cestmoiLanglois.
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Alaska’s wildlife war
The federal government pushes back as the state ramps up predator control.
Posted inGoat
Tribes now prosecute non-Native offenders, Alaska scrambles to catch up
“I am a Native American statistic. I am a survivor of sexual and physical violence.” So began a 2012 speech by Tulalip Tribes vice chairwoman Deborah Parker supporting the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The man who abused Parker in the 1970s – as well as the men who raped her aunt a decade later […]
Posted inGoat
What ‘unstoppable’ Antarctic ice melt means for Western cities
Save for a freak May snowstorm, the other day started off normally. I woke up, made a giant mug of coffee and walked to work. But May 12 was no ordinary Monday. “Today,” said Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine, “we present observational evidence that a large sector of the West […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Look, Ma – a real Indian!
A performance artist tackles stereotypes of Native Americans in public.
Posted inGoat
Unlikely partnership seeks to end turf wars in western Colorado
The room was a brawl waiting to happen. Horseback riders sat next to mountain bikers. ATV, jeep and motorbike enthusiasts took their seats across from wilderness, hiking and “quiet trail” advocates. Even a survey of peoples’ heads revealed the potential tension: There were cowboy hats and shiny, banker-like pates; spiky mullets and hair flattened by […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
The Latest: Changes afoot for oil and gas “trade secrets”
BackstoryEnergy companies have long enjoyed secrecy when it comes to the chemical makeup of the fluids they inject underground to release oil and gas. In the late 2000s, Western states like Wyoming and Colorado passed rules requiring some public disclosure, but broad exemptions for “trade secrets” remained common (“Frack forward,” HCN, 10/1/10). As hydraulic fracturing […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Shilling for Big Oil?
In 1993, the mayor of Cordova, Alaska, committed suicide. In his final note, he mentioned Exxon. This tragedy represents the lasting shocks that continue to ripple through many communities still affected by the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill 25 years later. While Krista Langlois’ story was focused on the ecological aspects of the […]
Posted inGoat
In an era of light pollution, the darkest skies in the West
Here are some of the region’s best stargazing spots.
Posted inGoat
Escalante oil spill raises questions about remote clean-ups
After four dusty days spent slithering through slot canyons and scrambling over boulders in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, this morning’s walk is notably refreshing. Steve Defa, a 59-year-old psychotherapist from Escalante, Utah, is leading me up a sandy wash shaded by big ponderosa pines and smaller pinyons. The air is fragrant with pine needles and […]
Posted inGoat
Corporate giant Xanterra takes over operations at Glacier National Park
As winter fades to bright green spring in northwest Montana, three men are hitting the pavement in the towns of Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls, shaking hands at local businesses and visiting Rotary Clubs like politicians on the campaign trail. The comparison isn’t far off: the men are the new faces of Glacier National Park, […]
Posted inGoat
Can cacti help San Joaquin Valley farmers survive a drought?
When I finally got a hold of John Diener, the busy 62-year-old farmer was en route to his organic broccoli field in central California’s San Joaquin Valley. I could picture the scene: a truck bouncing over a dusty track, golden morning sunlight, rows of bright green plants meeting a blue sky. The vision was idyllic. […]
Posted inGoat
Feds and state officials square off on Alaska hunting regulations
The morning of Friday, February 21 dawned bright and clear in the rolling boreal forest of the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, east of Fairbanks, Alaska. The temperature topped out at eight below zero. Earlier in the week, a family of 11 wolves known as the Lost Creek pack loped beyond the preserve’s boundaries as they […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
The toxic legacy of Exxon Valdez
We are just beginning to understand the true cost of one of America’s worst ecological disasters.
Posted inGoat
Updates on stories past: Salt Lake smog, wild horses, floods and more
It may still be winter in the mountains, but down here in Colorado’s North Fork Valley, late-season flurries are coming up against signs of spring. Farmers are burning ditches, the west-facing steps of Revolution Brewing are packed with after-work sun-seekers, and High Country News is in the middle of our quarterly print edition break, which […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
The farm bill and the precipitous decline of monarch butterflies
The fate of pollinators like monarchs is intertwined with federal policy.
Posted inGoat
Water rights bill pits ski industry against conservationists
The German philosopher with the impressively bushy mustache, Friedrich Nietzsche (below), said that all things are subject to interpretation. Had he lived in the Western U.S., he might have tacked on a clause: “Especially when it comes to water policy.” A House bill to be voted on this week hammers his point home, with policy […]
Posted inGoat
Even unpopular national parks are economic engines
Last summer, I visited Rocky Mountain National Park for the first time and, to be frank, was a little disgusted. Not by the park itself – the mountains were beautiful, even if the beetle-kill and $20 backcountry permits were disheartening – but by the salt-water-taffy-munching, airbrushed-tee-shirt-wearing crowd glutting the park’s gateway community of Estes Park, […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Silver (state) bullet
A proposed Mexico-to-Canada highway gets mixed reactions.
Posted inGoat
Living with less water: Lessons for Californians – and the rest of us – from a New Mexico village
Let me start right off by saying that I failed. Miserably. Last summer I moved to western Colorado after spending most of my 29 years in exceptionally rainy places, and amid discussions of water rights and fights and rivers drying up and unraveling, I decided it would be a good idea to limit my own […]