With the possible exception of England’s Royal Baby, few topics are as hot right now as fracking. No matter what news or quasi-news source you turn to, there it is: Impossible to ignore, nearly as impossible to understand. It’s no surprise that people are passionate about the subject. As Judith Lewis Mernit writes forHCN, natural […]
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House Republicans’ anti-EPA crusade goes on and on
House Republicans moved forward a controversial bill last week that would cut a third of the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, which raised the ire of environmentalists and caused at least one congressman to walk out of a committee meeting, calling the bill “an embarrassment.” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky) explained that the bill […]
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A half percent of hope in this year’s drought reports
“Let’s play a game,” a friend suggested last weekend as we walked through stands of brown, brittle trees on Stewart’s Creek trail to San Luis Peak in southwestern Colorado. The game was called “find the living tree,” and like “I spy,” we’d scan the landscape for green leaves. We chuckled grimly. The truth she spoke […]
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Renewable energy transmission projects create tension among greens
In mid June, I received two very different press releases from two environmental groups announcing the same event: The Bureau of Land Management’s release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed SunZia high voltage transmission line that would stretch from central New Mexico to the fringes of Phoenix, Ariz. The document is the […]
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New data shows government oversight of oil and gas spills is spotty at best
When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently walked back its massive investigation of water contamination from natural gas drilling in Pavillion, Wyoming, John Hanger, a Democratic candidate for governor in Pennsylvania and the former secretary of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, wrote on his blog: “The EPA has just put a ‘kick me’ sign on […]
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EPA chief confirmed. Are three key judicial nominees next?
Gina McCarthy must have been exhausted last week when she completed her 136-day slog down the path of most resistance – also known as the U.S. Congress – to the helm of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It was the most drawn-out battle over a nominee for EPA’s top job ever. But it had little […]
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Buffalo Soldier history could get a boost in national parks
Two bills awaiting review in the Senate could mean that the National Park Service will recount the history of African-American soldiers in a more complete way. “The Buffalo Soldiers were true pioneers who braved the Western frontier as well as the scourge of racism as they fought for and served our country,” California Congresswoman Jackie […]
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The future of the Tongass Forest lies beyond logging, but the timber industry has a hard time letting go
A friend of mine had her heart broken by Southeast Alaska. After studying forestry, she was dispatched to the tiny town of Hoonah in the midst of the Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is huge, a 17-million-acre labyrinth of steep fjords, dripping rainforests and salmon-filled rivers. It’s one of the most rugged and beautiful places […]
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Number crunching utility rates in the Arizona solar war
Last week, after months of rhetoric and hype, the first shots were fired in what has been billed as Arizona’s solar war, when Arizona Public Service, the state’s biggest utility, proposed a new rate structure that is far less favorable than the current one for homeowners with rooftop or backyard solar. Arizona’s Corporation Commission, the […]
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Who’s trashing the most popular park in Bozeman?
Mary Vant Hull, 85 years old and still kicking — or make that, kicking butt with her frank conversation — is showing me the degradation of Bozeman’s most popular park, on a bluff overlooking the whole city, when a sudden storm comes out of nowhere and blasts us. It’s July 16, but the temperature plummets […]
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A massive water supply plan will benefit fish habitat in Washington state
Last week the Yakama Nation celebrated an event that hasn’t happened in over 100 years. Sockeye salmon hatched in eastern Washington’s Cle Elum Lake returned there to spawn. It was an important moment in the tribe’s restoration program, which began in 2009, to bring back a salmon run that was 200,000 fish strong before irrigation […]
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American roadtrip with a twist: two women travel the nation to see climate adaptation in action
There are all sorts of reasons to hit the highway this time of year. You might be trying to escape recent extremes of desert heat, bound for cooler high country and the freezing plunge of alpine lakes, or bone-chilling swells along the Pacific Coast. Or perhaps you’re the sort whose perfect lark includes the world’s […]
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Wildfire and sedimentation could help Gila trout make a comeback
After the nearly 300,000-acre Whitewater-Baldy fire tore through the Gila Wilderness last summer, biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service geared up for a trek into the freshly burnt mountains. The team traveled to remote tributaries of the Gila River to collect any Gila trout, one of New Mexico’s […]
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Craft beer brewers test the waters of environmental activism
Policy analyst Karen Hobbs of the Natural Resource Defense Council has been on a mission to repeal Bush-era changes to the Clean Water Act for years. But she was looking for a popular ally to help get the word out. Then she discovered beer. Although the original 1972 Clean Water Act left little ambiguity about […]
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BP’s annual review paints a grim picture of global energy use
It’s a bit like Christmas time for energy geeks, and Halloween for environmentalists. Every summer, bp, née British Petroleum, releases its Statistical Review of World Energy, a big fat pile of data detailing the world’s energy production, consumption and trade. Energy geeks revel in it. Nowhere else can one find so much up-to-date information in […]
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Legislation aims to help natural resources agencies adapt to climate change
U.S. Geological Survey ecologist Dan Fagre is standing behind an interpretive sign that says “Going, going, gone,” as he describes how Glacier National Park’s glaciers have been wasting away over the past century. Each year, when he visits them, Fagre finds newly exposed rock that was once buried under ice. His research predicts that the […]
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Glen Canyon Dam’s evaporating hydropower
Ever since water levels in Lake Powell started dropping in 1999, the last time the reservoir was near full, I’d heard a lot about the infamous bathtub ring—the white band of minerals and salts that separates the current lake level from the high water mark. So I was looking forward to seeing it for myself […]
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The American West and the Energiewende: Part II
Peter Stehr is an apple farmer. But when he had a heart attack in 2002, he decided he needed to diversify his income, so he and some associates got a loan and put up a few .6 megawatt wind turbines in his orchard. Today, one of them still spins over a row of apple trees, […]
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Climate change: moving from science to policy
Last Tuesday I was speeding through the electric-green Montana landscape and hoping for radio or digital cellular reception to tap into the news about President Obama’s climate plan. I was frustrated that I couldn’t hear the story, much less write about it. But it was more than enough consolation to be heading to Missoula to […]
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Behind the fire headlines
With firefighter safety and the West’s changing fire ecology on everyone’s mind right now, it’s a good time to broaden our view with a trip into the HCN archives. Below are links to some of the in-depth stories we’ve done on these issues. Firefighter fatalities and safety The Fiery Touch: Wildfire arsonists burn forests, grasslands […]