Among the spectacles swirling around Southern California’s recent wildfires, we had now-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a man who rose from body-building to movie screens and into politics on the principle of self-reliance, beseeching Washington, D.C., to cushion Californians from the toll of the flames. There was also California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who rose with […]
Ray Ring
Posted inNovember 10, 2003: San Diego's Habitat Triage
Freaky Fridays with the Bush administration
Officials deliver bad news on the environment when no one is listening
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
The Big Story Written Small
After more than a hundred years of publishing, the West’s daily newspapers still fall short where it counts most.
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
One good example: The publisher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Big Story Written Small.” “I’m a great believer in newspapers,” says “Butch” A.L. Alford Jr., publisher of the Morning Tribune in Lewiston, Idaho. Many publishers voice that faith, but Alford is among the few who really live by it. His grandfather and great-uncle […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Excellence
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Big Story Written Small.” Only nine English-language daily newspapers in the American West do an excellent job of covering the region’s big story, according to the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources. In recognition, the institute gave these papers the first Wallace Stegner […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
One good example: The reporter
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Big Story Written Small.” Few environment reporters can claim the beat longevity, dogged determination and data-crunching appetite of Karen Dorn Steele of The Spokesman-Review, the daily paper in Spokane, Wash. Steele’s pioneering work uncovered Cold War secrets at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
It’s time for some solidarity
Our cover story focuses on farm fields and orchards in Washington state, where the plentiful harvest has an ugly, hidden cost, with workers often dangerously exposed to toxic pesticides. It’s an outrageous situation that nonetheless is typical around the nation. Between the lines, freelance writer Rebecca Clarren, who is a former HCN editor, finds larger […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 2003: The West's Biggest Bully
The West’s Biggest Bully
Environmentalists in Montana’s Flathead County make quiet progress against a 5,000-watt loudmouth
Posted inSeptember 15, 2003: The West's Biggest Bully
Conservationists work on cooperation
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The West’s Biggest Bully.” KALISPELL, Mont. — “In the past, almost everything you read about (environmentalists) was about lawsuits, appeals and conflict,” says Ben Long. “We’re trying to reframe the debate around what the community agrees on, rather than what splits us up.” Long, […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Feds to Energy Department: Slow down
In the struggle to clean up nuclear waste left by weapons programs and power plants, the West’s men in black robes are ganging up on the U.S. Department of Energy. So far this year, ruling in environmentalist lawsuits, no fewer than three federal judges have ordered the department to do a more careful job. On […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
A peek over the edge
In the endless arguments over public land, it’s healthy to seek the boggy middle ground. But it’s also worthwhile to stroll out to the edge, out where the arguments define right and wrong. For readers ready for such a stroll, Richard W. Behan has written a provocative travel guide, Plundered Promise: Capitalism, Politics, and the […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Gas, the clean energy?
If High Country News were in the habit of dispatching reporters to the Los Angeles area, we could begin our cover story there, in the metro hive of 17 million people. We could open with the average guy or gal, cranking on the air conditioner against the summer heat. Then we could follow the aftershocks […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Editor’s Note
The tribes believe the payments did not cover what they lost. The 1971 court ruling only calculated the land’s market value, not the other economic and cultural losses the tribes sustained when the federal government divided up their reservation, and sold off more than 400,000 acres to non-Indians. On the question of dollars alone, a […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Gas crisis puts Rockies in hot seat
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play.” Since last spring, Congress, the White House, economists, consumer groups and business leaders have been sounding the alarm about a natural gas crisis. While there’s plenty of disagreement on the cause and the solution, nearly everyone […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
The Red Desert braces for a gas boom
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play.” Plans for extracting natural gas are piling up in southwest Wyoming. In addition to the drilling in the Upper Green River Basin, industry is targeting fully one-fourth of the federal land in the region that environmentalists […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
In the rush to get out the gas, wildlife gets short shrift
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play.” One of the reasons the demand for natural gas is outsprinting the supply is that it takes too long to navigate the federal environmental rules. At least, that’s the story according to the industry and its […]
Posted inJuly 7, 2003: Invasion of the rock jocks
Demolish the dam, sayeth the Lord
Champagne corks popped recently in the office of the Clark Fork Coalition, a Montana environmental group. On April 15, the Environmental Protection Agency sided with the Clark Fork River, calling for the removal of the Milltown Dam and its toxic reservoir, just east of Missoula. “We’re thrilled,” says Tracy Stone-Manning, director of the coalition. “This […]
Posted inJuly 7, 2003: Invasion of the rock jocks
War on fire takes a toll on fish
One fish kill stretched five miles down Washington’s Omak Creek, and wiped out more than 10,000 trout and steelhead. Another fish kill hit five miles of Colorado’s Mancos River. Others hit several Oregon streams. The cause? Fire retardants dropped by airplanes, as federal agencies battled wildfires during the past three years. The plume of chemicals […]
Posted inJuly 7, 2003: Invasion of the rock jocks
As fires rage, governors counsel discretion
The Bush administration’s Healthy Forests Initiative gets little support from the Western Governors’ Association
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Who should pay when houses burn?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “A losing battle.” CONNER, Montana Greg Tilford and his wife, Mary, pursued a dream when they quit their jobs as cops in California and moved here. They built a two-bedroom cabin on a forested ridgetop above Dickson Creek, installed solar panels and a garden, […]