Two weeks have passed since 12,000 plastic bottles began riding the waves from San Francisco to Sydney. This is no mini Pacific Garbage Patch–the bottles form the bulk of the Plastiki, a 60-foot sailing boat built from recycled materials. Its big, flashy journey is intended to raise awareness about manmade pollution in the ocean. Perhaps […]
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Big cats come and go
In early March, a mountain lion chased a Jack Russell terrier into a house near Salida, Colo., surprising a woman and her five-year-old son, who sat coloring with crayons at the kitchen table. Luckily, they were able to dash into a bedroom. When Division of Wildlife officials arrived and subdued the lion, they found the […]
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Not so CX-y now
A 2008 lawsuit filed to protect Utah petroglyphs from oil and gas drilling has just been resolved — and the settlement has big implications for the West’s public lands. Announced Wednesday, the decision means that the Bureau of Land Management can no longer fast-track energy development in cases where there are “extraordinary circumstances” — environmental, […]
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How much carbon is “In My Tree”?
The grunge band Pearl Jam is known for being loud — and for being socially and environmentally conscious. The rockers deserve more applause this week, after announcing they will mitigate their emissions for their 2009 tour, one tree at a time. The band’s giving $210,000 to the Cascade Land Conservancy to help restore urban forests […]
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If all else fails …
The Forest Service announced this week that it’s taking a bold new tack in forest planning — talking to the public. The agency has been trying for more than a decade to modernize its forest planning process, which is supposed to guide the creation of plans for each national forest that specify areas for logging, […]
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Grasshopper plague expected this summer
Fires, floods, drought, blizzards, avalanches — life in the West can be rather challenging. And now a plague of locusts. Well, not exactly. Just plain old grasshoppers, whose population has been growing in parts of the West, and might peak this year, causing hundreds millions of dollars in crop and other damage. The population boom […]
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Frack-O-Rama
It’s been a hot week in the tug-of-war over how – or whether – the government will regulate hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”), the drilling method used to extract oil and natural gas, with almost daily headlines coming out of the EPA, Wyoming and Congress. First, the big news: last Thursday, the EPA finally announced it […]
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Popcorn Activism
The trailer for the new documentary Gasland lasts all of 15 seconds: a man turns on the kitchen tap. He holds a match up to the flowing water and FWOOSH–foot-high flames leap toward the ceiling. Dramatic, yes, but perhaps old news to Westerners who know the possible dangers of natural gas drilling. Thanks to a […]
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The death of a giant
Stewart Udall passed away on March 20. His conservation accomplishments in the West are legendary (although he wasn’t always an environmental hero; as an Arizona representative, he voted to dam Glen Canyon). Our 2004 feature on Udall summed up his legacy (and that of his brother Mo): Stewart served three terms as an Arizona congressman, […]
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Taking back the country
Colorado’s political season got off to its official start on March 16 with precinct caucuses, but even before those gatherings, some candidates had ads on TV. Among them was Jane Norton, former lieutenant governor and one of several candidates for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. The seat was won by Democrat […]
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Predator control, Alaska-style
In Alaska, it’s once again time for one of the state’s major rites of spring — the aerial shooting of wolves. In five management areas around the state, Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game has decided that there aren’t enough moose and caribou, and that the answer is to shoot more wolves. In the Fortymile […]
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Wheatpastin’ the Rez
During the last year or so, a new kind of “graffiti” has been showing up on abandoned buildings, old billboards and rusted out oil tanks on the Navajo Nation. A street artist who goes by the name of Jetsonorama (who sometimes works with another artist, Yote, and No Reservation Required) has been plastering these places […]
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Name that fish
Quah-rah, Ulken, Anchovies, Olthen’, All-Can, Uth-le-chan, Uthulhuns, othlecan, ulichan, fathom-fish, Oulachan, “those little finny swarming beings of the deep,” Oolá-han, uthlecan, ulluchans, Ulachans, oolachan, Hoolakans, Hooligan . . . If this list is any indication, frontiersmen had a hell of a time figuring out what, precisely, to call this thing. In 1856, when Dr. William […]
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The accidental highway
Glenwood Canyon on the Western Slope of Colorado has been in the news lately, thanks to a big rockslide that happened just after midnight on March 9. The tumbling boulders blocked and damaged a stretch of Interstate 70. It took four days to get the highway open again, just on a limited basis. During the […]
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Ladybugs and Lear
I ran into an article today about “a harbinger of bad insulation . . . good fortune and an early spring,” which stirred a memory from a few years ago, an episode out of doors. On a Friday in September, three friends and I drove east from Reno on I-80 into the Nevada desert to […]
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All aboard the coal train
Very little is certain for ol’ King Coal these days. The numbers weren’t pretty last year. Coal production was down almost 8 percent in 2009, and consumption fell even further. Environmentalists are still fighting new coal-fired power plants tooth and nail—and winning. And the future of federal carbon regulation, which could have major implications for […]
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Politics and currency
H.L. Mencken once observed that it would have been worth losing the Civil War in order not to have Ulysses S. Grant as president. The reputation of Grant’s presidency, 1869-77, has improved since Mencken’s day, but apparently not enough. Now there’s a bill introduced in Congress to replace his picture on the $50 bill, a […]
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No ESA for sage grouse
You might be all in a tizzy about whether Avatar or Hurt Locker will win the big Oscar on Sunday. But a lot of folks in the Interior West — and enviro wonks from all over — were focused this week on a much bigger announcement: Will the greater sage grouse get federal protection under […]
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Olympic Sasquatch
Quatchi is a bearded, earmuff-loving sasquatch. He was one of the official mascots of the 2010 Winter Olympics, part of a trio that included Miga, a mythical sea bear sporting a serious cowlick, and Sumi, an animal spirit with furry feet and thunderbird wings. All three were inspired by the legends of four of Canada’s […]
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Totally gnarly air, dude
What might California save if it met the EPA’s current air quality standards? From 2005-’07, the figure might have been $193 million — in hospital bills alone. That’s the approximate cost of about 30,000 emergency room visits and/or hospital admissions that might have been avoided if California’s skies were more breathable, according to a new […]