It’s easy to write about coming to the West. Legendary figures, such as Jack Kerouac, Ed Abbey and even John Denver, still inspire young people to follow them to the land of Rocky Mountain highs and red rock deserts in search of enlightenment. What’s harder to do, however, is to write about leaving the West. […]
Laura Paskus
Posted inFebruary 20, 2006: High Noon for Habitat
Waiting for Rain
This year, I spent Christmas in Albuquerque lounging on my back porch, reading in a tank top and suffering a fool’s sunburn. Now, in late January, it’s sunny and in the mid-50s. And although two days ago, the local newspaper kept posting updates about a storm system heading into the state, here in the city, […]
Posted inWotr
What price New Mexico’s sky?
When I moved back to New Mexico this summer, I did my best to contain my enthusiasm for a long-awaited homecoming. In short, I tried to avoid tangling memory with reality. New Mexico is often easier to love in the abstract. Despite its often idealized history — full of noble American Indians, a stern Georgia […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
Lawmakers chop up renewable-energy fund
As the demand for renewable energy becomes palpable across the West, lawmakers have taken a bold step: They’ve slashed the U.S. Department of Energy’s budget for renewable energy programs and directed funding toward such projects in their own districts. In mid-November, Congress cut about $160 million from the Energy Department’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2006: The Killing Fields
Public-lands freedom fighter
NAME Stephen Maurer AGE 68 HOME BASE Albuquerque, New Mexico KNOWN FOR Fighting the Soviet-backed regime in Hungary, his native country; working to protect public lands in his adopted country. HE SAYS “Don’t use (the phrase) ‘federal lands.’ They are ‘public lands.’ If it’s the government’s land, it belongs to them, and it’s not ours.” […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
Renewable law leaves the gate
When Colorado voters approved Amendment 37 in 2004, most had no idea how long it would take for the state’s renewable standards to go into effect. More than a year later, the state’s Public Utilities Commission finally released the rules implementing the law, which requires the state’s largest utilities to generate 10 percent of their […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2006: Timberlands up for grabs
A watery mystery in New Mexico
Even if you haven’t read a mystery novel since the Hardy Boys, give Rudolfo Anaya’s new book, Jemez Spring, a whirl. All in one day, Sonny Baca, an Albuquerque private investigator, works to solve the governor’s murder at the Jemez Springs Bath House and deactivate a nuclear bomb left in the Valles Caldera to blow […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Forget idealism
Renewable energy will save consumers money
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
The little wilderness that could
New Mexico conservationists build support from the ground up, and win one
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Trouble on the Valles Caldera
Push to keep cows on preserve clashes with mandate to make money
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Glen Canyon Dam will stand
Glen Canyon Dam isn’t coming down. That’s the final word from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on calls to dismantle the dam, drain Lake Powell and release the waters of the Colorado (HCN, 12/22/03: Being green in the land of the saints). Under orders from Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the agency must develop a drought-management […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Odes to an urban mountain range
Like other mountain ranges that dominate city skylines, Albuquerque’s Sandia Mountains are too easily taken for granted. The Sandias’ diverse hiking trails range from the lung-busters that scale the west side’s granite face to lush trails on the east that meander through mixed conifers. But how many of the city’s half-million residents take advantage of […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
A smart-growth bulldog
Albuquerque city councilman goes head-to-head with the incumbent mayor, and the developers who have long ruled here
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
The harder they spawn, the quicker they die
After three years of stocking efforts — and an unusually wet start to 2005 — silvery minnows had a good run this spring in the Middle Rio Grande. Now, as the river recedes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that more of the endangered fish can legally be allowed to die. Biologists found millions […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2005: A Military Town Fights for its Life
Bedrock environmental law takes a beating
Pombo’s task force tears into the National Environmental Policy Act
Posted inAugust 8, 2005: The Gangs of Zion
Follow-up
The Mexican wolf program is on the rocks. In mid-July, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists captured F511, the alpha female of the first wolf pack reintroduced in the Southwest. They planned to remove her radio collar and vaccinate her four pups (HCN, 7/25/05: Wolf Man John). But according to Colleen Buchanan, assistant coordinator of […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Follow-up
Southern Arizona’s San Pedro River, the Southwest’s last free-flowing desert river, dried up for the first time since the U.S. Geological Survey started tracking flows in 1904 (HCN, 8/30/04: A Thirst for Growth). Beginning on July 4, river flows fluctuated between zero and 0.3 cubic feet per second. But when the river dried on the […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Follow-up
U.S. District Court Judge James A. Redden announced he plans to order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to release water from its dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to help endangered salmon and steelhead (HCN, 6/13/05: “For salmon, a crucial moment of decision”). Although NOAA Fisheries, the agency charged with protecting the fish, […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Frozen in time: Endangered species science
If scientists have learned anything new about the genetics of rare species in the past three decades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may not want to hear about it. In January, H. Dale Hall, the Service’s Region 2 director, released a new policy for developing recovery plans for rare species: Scientists are to use […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
The more the West changes, the more it stays the same
Bernard DeVoto, a man with few sacred cows, wrote a monthly column on the West for Harper’s magazine from 1946 until 1955. From “The Easy Chair,” he expounded on everything from how cattlemen destroyed Western watersheds to why the West is “systematically looted and has always been bankrupt.” Now, history professor Edward K. Muller has […]