Why are Texans raising hell about a water deal that could raise money for their schools?
Matt Jenkins
Posted inNovember 10, 2003: San Diego's Habitat Triage
Dear Friends
Radio Special Radio High Country News will return to the airwaves in mid-November for a special one-hour show called “Atomic Tales: Living in the Nuclear West.” The program will explore our region’s cradle-to-grave relationship with all things nuclear — a relationship that reaches from the dawn of the nuclear age to the burial of radioactive […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2003: The Gear Biz
Follow-up
While the oil and gas industry is rubbing its hands in anticipation of a coalbed methane bonanza, Wall Street is counseling discretion (HCN, 5/26/03: A green light for gas drilling). On Oct. 2, a group of 13 “socially responsible” institutional investors — including the Calvert Group, U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray and Domini Social Investments — […]
Posted inOctober 27, 2003: The Gear Biz
California strikes a water truce
A landmark water deal could bring peace on the Colorado River — and money for the Salton Sea
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Dear Friends
CONGRATULATIONS Michelle Nijhuis penned her final words as HCN’s senior editor in December 2001, but she has not been sitting still since then. Michelle returned as our contributing editor last year; she’s also written for Audubon, The Christian Science Monitor and Salon, and has forthcoming articles in Smithsonian and Orion. Michelle’s feature story about urban […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
Dear Friends
THE WRITE STUFF The season’s beginning to change here in Paonia, and with crisper days we’ve also got fresh editorial blood for the fall. Hailing from tropical Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, new HCN intern Pua Mench moved to Hawaii’s “polar” opposite to attend Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., where the temperatures dipped to minus-40 degrees. Eventually, she […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 2003: The West's Biggest Bully
Dear Friends
IN FROM THE HEAT When Nancy LaPlaca first became a subscriber to High Country News, she sat in her apartment in Tempe, Ariz., and wondered where Paonia was. Now, 16 years later, she knows exactly where it is: Nancy moved here in July to become HCN’s marketing associate. No stranger to environmental causes, Nancy has […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Follow-up
Another Interior Department official is under investigation for a conflict of interest: This time it’s the department’s top lawyer, William Myers (HCN, 6/23/03). Watchdog groups say Myers, who represented public-lands ranching associations as a Boise lawyer and signed a recusal agreement after his appointment as solicitor, met with cattle interests seven times to discuss changes […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Mr. Middle Ground gets called to Washington
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt nominated to head the EPA
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Pipe Dreams
LINCOLN COUNTY, NEVADA — Out here in a rock-strewn, desolate sweep of creosote bush and blackbrush called the Tule Desert, there’s a patch of land bulldozed clear of vegetation. Standing in the middle of it is a well called PW-1. It doesn’t look like much; just a 32-inch-diameter steel pipe, painted black and sticking out […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Rural ‘Water Warriors’ take on a water wrangler
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Pipe Dreams.” Thirty-five miles southwest of Las Vegas, on the California/Nevada border, Sandy Valley is a desert haven for free-living refugees from the urban rat race. The valley’s institutions range from Dust Devil Pizza to the Sky Ranch Airport — “A Flying Family Community” […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
County’s hopes rest on a roller-coaster power market
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Pipe Dreams.” The 2001 energy crisis, and the sky-high power prices that came with it, touched off a stampede of new power plant proposals throughout the West. North Carolina-based Cogentrix Energy arrived in Nevada with a plan to build an 1,100 megawatt gas-fired power […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Gulf of California Dreamin’
No river in the United States has been as aggressively seized for human use as the Colorado — and shelves of books have been written to tell the story. But what becomes of the river once it flows out of the U.S. and into Mexico has received considerably less print. Now, Defenders of Wildlife has […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
How much is wilderness worth?
Utah’s anti-wilderness moves could cost it the outdoor industry’s allegiance
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Congress jousts over forest health
With fire season on the way, lawmakers again take up the battle over Bush’s Healthy Forests Initiative
Posted inWotr
With its back to the wall, California turns to the sea
It’s going to be a hot, feverish summer, even more so because water supplies are pinched unusually tight. Nowhere is that as true as in California. On New Year’s day, Interior Secretary Gale Norton rudely weaned the state off its long-running overuse of Colorado River water, slashing access to the river by 15 percent. Now, […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Wilderness takes a massive hit
The door closes on new BLM wilderness proposals
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
The Colorado River’s sleeping giant stirs
Navajo Nation wants its long-overdue cut of the river
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
The wild card
As the Wilderness Act nears its 40th anniversary, protecting wild lands requires a new kind of deal-making.
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Wilderness provides a ‘safe haven’ for this cowboy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The wild card.” When I meet Cal Baird at a truck stop about 30 miles south of Vegas, he clears a space for me in the passenger’s seat of his Ford pickup (“I don’t know how we ever got by without extended cabs — […]