They were, to say the least, a bit promiscuous. Between 2006 and 2008, the Bureau of Land Management — the primary agency responsible for overseeing drilling on federal lands — permitted more than 6,100 oil and gas projects without detailed environmental review using special “categorical exclusions,” according to a Government Accountability Office analysis. The waivers […]
Sarah Gilman
Sarah Gilman is an independent writer, illustrator and editor based in Washington state. Her work covers the environment, natural history, science and place. She served as a staff and contributing editor at High Country News for 11 years.
Posted inGoat
They’re baa-aaack. . .
A sunken-eyed old man dressed in stiff, black Puritan clothes stalks a suburban neighborhood. The TV turns on by itself. A toy phone rings and rings — tinny and off-key — in the dead of night. A little blond girl crawls out of bed. Lifts the receiver to her ear, pauses, turns. Then, in a […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Little orphan easement?
A look at what happens when a land trust dissolves
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Frack 2, Scene 1
In 2006, in the midst of the Rocky Mountain energy boom, Grand Junction and Palisade, Colo., lost a long battle to keep natural gas drilling off the forested mesa that supplies the two communities’ drinking water. Now, the drilling boom has moved out East, and the political landscape of the oil and gas fight appears […]
Posted inGoat
Snodgrass slowdown
As recently as this summer, it looked like Crested Butte Mountain Resort — a ski area in western Colorado renowned for its extreme terrain — might finally expand onto the forested slopes of uncharismatically-dubbed Snodgrass Mountain (Gusundheit!). The company has been pushing the expansion for decades, and a strong local opposition movement has been active […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
Is the BLM practicing unsafe CX?
More than 6,000 drilling permits issued under questionable provision
Posted inGoat
More on that big sucking sound from Vegas
If you’ve enjoyed HCN’s coverage of Las Vegas’ groundwater machinations, you should tune in to this interview. From KUNC, Community Radio for Northern Colorado: In the latest in our occasional series of conversations with the writers at High Country News, Editor Jonathan Thompson tells KUNC’s Kirk Siegler that (massive water pipeline) projects are back under […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
The good seats don’t come cheap
More proof that if you’ve got power, you probably have money that helped you get it. Sixteen Westerners are among the 50 richest Congressfolk, according to Roll Call’s annual ranking. The math, however, amounts to lowball estimates: On financial disclosure forms, lawmakers report in ranges ($1 million to $5 million, for example), so the totals […]
Posted inGoat
The changing face of the West
Last Monday, I drove over McClure Pass to Carbondale, Colo., to join NPR reporter Jeff Brady, Rocky Mountain Community Radio correspondent Bente Birkeland, Aspen Times columnist Paul Anderson, and KDNK community radio News Director Conrad Wilson for a lively (and live) discussion of Western issues and how they play out in Colorado. You can find […]
Posted inGoat
The long dark tea time of the split estate
An older couple — freshly retired from jobs on Colorado’s Californicized Front Range — decides it’s time to build a dream home somewhere on the state’s less populous Western Slope. They pick a dry mesa, scrubby with sage and rabbit brush, where the views go on for miles. The neighbors graze cows. The meadowlarks sing. […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Peril in the parks
Early August: A woman and her young son are stranded for five days in a remote corner of Death Valley National Park in 117 degree-average heat; the boy doesn’t survive. Late August: Two climbers fall in Grand Teton; one is airlifted from a ledge by helicopter. The National Park Service is involved in thousands of […]
Posted inGoat
Medic!
Picture yourself on the front lines of a massive wildfire — soot smeared into the creases of your face, your clothes stiff and itchy with days-old sweat, your palms blistered from grubbing a fire line through duff and brush with a Pulaski. What dangers might you face? Falling snags? A fire sweeping uphill faster than […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
A wedding, a story
Here in Paonia, Colo., the peaches and tomatoes are finally ripening and High Country News is still welcoming lots of summer visitors. Dale Benjamin and his son, Jordan, of Vancouver, Wash., dropped by the office with Dale’s cousin, Hal Brill, a Paonia local. A USDA consumer safety inspector back home, Dale said he was glad […]
Posted inGoat
Milk: It doesn’t always do a body good
If you haven’t read Rebecca Clarren’s excellent HCN cover story on the West’s immigrant dairy workers and the on-the-job dangers they face, do it now! If you have read it and want to learn more, you should check out the story’s hefty (and heavy) sidebar: A comprehensive list of deaths and injuries in the West’s […]
Posted inGoat
A bear ate my old landlord?!
The title of this blog has a horror movie ring to it. It even sounds a little too ridiculous to be real. But for High Country News staffer Tammy York, it’s the truth. This isn’t the sort of thing we usually report on, but it’s a pretty incredible (and tragic) story to have so close […]
Posted inGoat
Don’t feed the animals
Sad proof that it’s not wise to feed wildlife: Last week, a housekeeper found the partially eaten body of 74-year-old Donna Munson outside of Munson’s Ouray County, Colo., home. Munson regularly fed nine bears, and had been repeatedly warned by officials to stop. Authorities have since determined that Munson was killed by a 394-lb male […]
Posted inGoat
Alternative alternative energy in the West
The West’s renewable energy resources — especially the wind, solar and geothermal energy concentrated on our vast public lands — are in the limelight a lot these days. With that in mind, HCN put together this summer’s special issue around the concept of alternative alternative energy — as in, not just those big solar and […]
Posted inGoat
Kitten caboodle
After two kittenless years, Colorado’s Canada lynx are breeding successfully again. The Colorado Division of Wildlife, which has reintroduced 218 of the large-pawed cats to the state over the past decade, located 10 new lynx kittens during their annual spring survey this year. That total includes two dens of kittens whose parents are native to […]
Posted inJune 15, 2009: Let's Get Small
Thinking Past the Moment
An interview with Sierra Club renewable energy expert Carl Zichella
Posted inJune 1, 2009: Voyage of the Dammed
Visitors from underground
VISITORS FROM UNDERGROUNDPat Jablonsky and Bill Yett of nearby Delta stopped in to our Paonia, Colo., office to renew their subscription and tell us about their recent trip to New Mexico’s Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area. They showed us astonishing photos of the Snowy River passage, named for the miles-long formation of bright […]