By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House My first year in college I had kitchen cleanup duty with a friend who enthusiastically splashed bleach and ammonia into a bucket while she was mopping the floors. Almost immediately, the toxic vapor had our heads swimming and our eyes burning. As the entire dorm was being evacuated I […]
Red Lodge
Posted inRange
Billion dollar baby: Why the Flaming Gorge pipeline is bad for the West
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House A series of billboards were unveiled in western Colorado yesterday, opposing a proposed water pipeline. Overlaying the image of a desiccated river bed is the phrase, “This’ll only cost you $9 billion.” The placards were funded by some non-profits that are fighting the “Regional Watershed Supply Project,” which would […]
Posted inRange
Mega myths of the Keystone XL pipeline
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Among hundreds of protestors who spent three days in jail in Washington D.C. for publicly opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700-mile-long conduit planned to carry crude oil from Canada’s tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries, was Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org. When he was released from the […]
Posted inRange
Some places are as good as gold
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House “Wilderness, wilderness . . . We scarcely know what we mean by the term, though the sound of it draws all whose nerves and emotions have not yet been irreparably stunned, deadened, numbed by the caterwauling of commerce, the sweating scramble for profit and domination.” Ah, nothing like a little […]
Posted inRange
The monumental fight over Otero Mesa
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House The decade-long tussle over energy development in New Mexico’s Otero Mesa has been reinvigorated recently, as hardrock mining claims now threaten the region for the first time. The area, sometimes referred to as the “Southwest’s Serengeti,” is a 1.2 million-acre stretch of undisturbed Chihuahuan Desert grassland. The sprawling but sensitive […]
Posted inRange
If polluting was a criminal offense, would it happen as much?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Whenever I hear the term oil “spill” — which seems too often lately — I cringe. Not just because the environment has taken another one on the chin, but because it makes the incident sounds like a tipped glass of milk that can be mopped up with a napkin. […]
Posted inRange
It’s getting hot out here
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House The numbers are in and—it’s official—our new “normal” is warmer. Starting this month, when a day is declared colder, snowier or hotter than usual, it won’t mean what it used to. Up to this point, the U.S. Climate Normals have encompassed a three-decade period from 1971 to 2000. A […]
Posted inRange
Out of their mines
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House In a narrow canyon, not far above where I live in Boulder, is the old, abandoned Captain Jack Mill. In its heyday in the late 19th century, gold and silver were processed there, after being blasted from their hiding places in several area mines. Nowadays, contaminants from those efforts, including […]
Posted inRange
Where’s the conservation?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House “Navigating the Future of the Colorado River,” a conference held at the University of Colorado Law School last week, was filled with folks who have spent decades studying the river, interpreting the Law of the River (as the Compact of 1922 and many subsequent agreements are called) and […]
Posted inRange
Rare accord marks opening of Colorado River conference
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing HouseDespite its reputation as the “most legislated, most debated, and most litigated river in the entire world” – as Marc Reiser put it in Cadillac Desert – there was a cooperative air at the start of “Navigating the Future of the Colorado River,” a conference being held at the […]
Posted inRange
The kids are not all right (with climate change)
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House A few weeks ago, a band of juvenile activists made headlines around the country when they, with the help of some eager adults, filed lawsuits demanding our nation’s leaders do their part to reduce carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Two 11-year-olds in Boulder signed onto the Colorado suit, […]
Posted inRange
Kevin Costner, Western rivers, and climate change
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Reading the recently-released Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) report—on the impacts of climate change on Western water resources— is like watching Waterworld, that futuristic flop in which Kevin Costner sails around a post-apocalyptic globe that’s been completely inundated by melted polar ice caps, in search of dry land. Waterworld […]
Posted inRange
Swapping politics for science
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House It’s not often a government agency asks Congress to limit the amount of money it spends to do its job. But that’s what the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) did last month when it told Congress that it wants a cap put on how much it can […]
Posted inRange
Time is running out for the Grand Canyon
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House On July 21, a moratorium on staking new uranium and other hardrock mining claims on over one million acres of public land near the Grand Canyon National Park, will end. Unless the Department of the Interior makes a decision on the land withdrawal prior to that–which seems unlikely, […]
Posted inRange
Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House As darkness blanketed the land, two cunning predators made their move. Their thirst for blood was intense and, when the opportunity presented itself, they sunk their canines into the soft underbelly of their prey. This eager hunting pair–Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID)–have doggedly pursued […]
Posted inRange
Keeping the wild in National Wildlife Refuges
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House I’ve never thought much about this country’s National Wildlife Refuges (NWR). With the exception of controversial ones like the “drill, baby, drill” Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they’re stealthy public lands that don’t get the airtime our national parks and monuments do. It wasn’t until recently, when I learned […]
Posted inRange
Red, white and blue is the new green
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Despite what freshman Republican lawmakers would have us believe, giving a flying finch about the environment is very American. The authors of recent proposals and bills surrounding the federal budget—which have been called some of the most anti-environmental pieces of legislation in recent history—are out of touch with […]
Posted inRange
How green is your wind farm?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Somewhere in the California desert, the Mohave ground squirrel is safe from solar panels, for now. After being sued over concerns for the critter, the developer Solar Millennium withdrew plans for its 250-megawatt solar station. It’s just one of a flurry of legal protests to several large-scale solar […]
Posted inRange
Quenching Colorado’s thirst
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Every winter in Colorado we watch our snowpack levels closely because they tell us how much water we’ll have in reserve for use on our farms and in our homes when the weather warms. Last week’s snowpack update showed that, due to a relatively dry January, supplies in […]
Posted inRange
Road rage on the Front Range
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Momentum is building for the construction of a controversial, 10-mile toll road through a wildlife refuge outside of Denver. Embroiled in the road row are warring counties, a powerful mining company and one man obsessed with asphalt. Now that it seems the road may become a reality, the […]