By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House It wasn’t long after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was in Denver last month, announcing a new “Wild Lands” policy, that debate over the order flared: will it illegally lock up too much land as “hands off” wilderness, or does it rightfully restore protection for wild tracts of land? […]
Red Lodge
Posted inRange
Saving Montana’s trees, one ranch at a time
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House When forestry experts in Montana concluded last week that December’s cold snap did little to kill beetle larvae nestled under lodgepole and ponderosa pine bark, it was harsh news for those watching the ever-growing bands of reddish-brown beetle-killed forests across the West. It would take at least a […]
Posted inRange
New hope for old mines
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House For all their knowledge of the land, miners, whose legacy lives long in Colorado, had little thought of the long-term environmental consequences of their work. For over 150 years, coal, gold, silver, uranium, gypsum and limestone, among other resources, have been drilled, blasted and hauled from their hiding […]
Posted inRange
Weighing the costs of unobtainium
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House As this year comes to a close, anxiety continues to mount on how public and private interests in the US are going to get their hands on enough rare earth elements (REE) to maintain and grow the industries that rely on them. The race is on to strategize […]
Posted inBlog
The fracking fracas
By Heather Hansen When the EPA sent a subpoena to Halliburton earlier this month, demanding to know what’s in the fluid used to drive their hydraulic fracturing process for natural gas and oil production, industry watchers braced for a showdown. But, less than a week later, the company (which is one of the largest oilfield […]