The most important image from the disaster that rocked Japan last month might be one that was never captured by anyone’s camera. It has to be conjured up from words: The mayor of a town on the Sanriku coast north of Sendai races to the top of the three-story city hall to escape the tsunami […]
Oakley Brooks
Posted inApril 30, 2007: Rural Education 2.0
Market cooling
Will California and the West knock down global warming by buying and selling carbon?
Posted inWotr
Portland and Seattle steal all the rain
My wife was just climbing into bed, and I was already heavy with sleep after a coastal trip the other night, when something began tearing at the screen outside our small bedroom window. This something was eager to come inside. In the few seconds it took for us to yell and wave our arms madly […]
Posted inNovember 25, 2002: Planning's poster child grows up
Putting green Portland on the map
Though Portland has earned a reputation as a green city, with its well-publicized parks, organic markets and light-rail lines, even savvy locals find it challenging to connect the city’s disparate venues. The search just got easier with the Portland Green Map, a map with 800 resources and points of interest for Portlanders who lean green. […]
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
Oak killer on the loose
OREGON, CALIFORNIA A new plague threatens thousands of native oak trees in southern Oregon. Sudden oak death, which causes trees to bleed a reddish-black fluid and their leaves to droop and turn brown, has already killed thousands of trees in Northern California. Last month, forestry experts in Oregon learned that the disease had made its […]
Posted inApril 9, 2001: The water empress of Vegas
How green is this growth?
Opposition builds against a ‘model’ development in Southern California
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Park photo contest comes with corporate baggage
NATION Amateur photographers are now submitting their sharpest national park photos to the National Park Service in hopes of appearing on the 2002 Parks Pass, which allows entry to the nation’s 383 parks. Kodak has agreed to organize and fund the entire contest, including flying the winner and family to any park in the country. […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
A slow comeback for Mexican wolves
Mexican gray wolves continue to die along the Arizona-New Mexico line. In December, U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials found a dead wolf outside of Reserve, N.M. It was the 21st Mexican gray wolf to die or disappear since the agency first released captive animals into the Apache National Forest in 1998 (HCN, 12/21/98: Wolf killers […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Straw bales relieve housing crunch
For six years, Red Feather Development Group has been pushing a low-cost solution to the housing crunch on Indian reservations, where extended families often squeeze into tiny government-issue homes. One answer, according to the Bellevue, Wash.-based nonprofit, lies in building houses with bales of straw. The bales are a product of the wheat harvest on […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Little town shows big heart in the face ofgrowth
CALIFORNIA Silicon Valley has pumped $50 million into California open space preservation since 1998. But this fall, on California’s central coast, residents of the small town of Cambria showed that sheer will also goes a long way in the fight against development. Hong Kong investors had plans to put over 250 homes on 417 seaside […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Agency gets rebuked
Since the late 1980s, scientists have known that more than 100 federal nuclear sites, over half of which lie in the West, will remain toxic forever. The problem is how to manage these former bomb sites for thousands of years. Though the Department of Energy commissioned a National Academy of Sciences study over two years […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Of raptors, rats and roadkill
At the Northern Rockies Raptor Center in northwestern Montana, Ken Wolff has been nursing injured birds back to health for 12 years. But this August his nonprofit operation hit a small snag. Five hundred pounds of frozen rodents, which Wolff uses to feed birds of prey, failed to arrive at the Missoula airport. He spent […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Los Alamos piles on more waste
NEW MEXICO With the stockpile of radioactive waste set to expand at Los Alamos National Laboratory, local watchdog groups fear that temporary storage might turn out to be forever. Fifteen years ago, Congress made the Department of Energy responsible for taking low-level radioactive waste from America’s private industries and government programs. But DOE has been […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Is a gold mine’s discharge illegal?
COLORADO The Cripple Creek & Victor Mine near Victor can claim two superlatives: It is Colorado’s largest open-pit gold mine, and, according to the EPA, it’s also the state’s biggest chemical polluter of water. Because Colorado has failed to rein in the mine, say two national environmental groups, they are threatening to sue the mine […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
The latest bounce
In a strange election, Western political contests had their share of unusual moments … More than two weeks after the election, Washington finished counting votes in its tight U.S. Senate race (HCN, 10/23/00: Stalking Slade). Although Democratic challenger Maria Cantwell beat incumbent Republican Slade Gorton by 1,953 votes, the race is far from over: The […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
Animas-La Plata staggers on
COLORADO Thirty-two years after Congress first authorized it, Colorado’s controversial Animas-La Plata water project still awaits federal funding. But recent events indicate its latest incarnation is alive and kicking (HCN, 11/11/96: Cease-fire called on the Animas-La Plata front). In late October, the Animas- La Plata bill, sponsored by Sen. Ben Campbell, R-Colo., passed the Senate; […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
Rivers without water
Rain pelts cities in western Oregon at up to 10 inches a month in the winter wet season. Yet each summer, 10 major rivers and streams, including the often-visited Deschutes, dwindle to trickles or dry out completely. “The average person isn’t even aware this problem exists,” says Reed Benson, executive director of Portland-based WaterWatch, a […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
Some Puget Sounders bet on the farm
In western Washington, two counties have begun a program called FarmLink to save family farms. FarmLink connects prospective farmers with current farmers in King and Snohomish counties who would like to sell all or part of their lands. It also provides workshops on marketing and other subjects for both would-be and current farmers. Over the […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Into the depths
Scientists from the federal government and the University of New Hampshire pulled off an amazing feat this July: They went to 600-feet-deep Crater Lake in Oregon and, “took all the water out of it,” says Jim Gardner of the U.S. Geological Survey. Gardner and his team managed this without actually moving any water: They used […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Congress moves on local proposals
Babbitt’s ‘monument tour’ led to some legislative solutions