What do sixty volunteers, the U.S. Forest Service, Trout Unlimited and MillerCoors have in common? They’re all participating, in one way or another, in the Clear Creek restoration project at the Arapaho National Forest this Saturday, as part of the National Forest Foundation’s third annual Friends of the Forest Day. Other partners include the National […]
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Rural renaissance redux
It wasn’t really my intention, but I was part of the “rural renaissance” of the 1970s when, for the first time in generations, many rural areas starting gaining population. In 1974, my wife and I, both Baby Boomers, moved from the civilized Front Range piedmont of Colorado to a rather remote rural area — […]
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Clash along the Columbia
Ten simple words. For the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in western Oregon, ten words introduced into an existing law would restore their relationship with the land upon which their ancestors lived. Other tribes, however, consider the move risky. Last month, Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR) introduced a bill in Congress that would add the Grand […]
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Why West?
In an attempt to clear the craziness clouding the health care debate and drum up support for a public option, President Obama parachuted into unfriendly territory last Saturday—and not for the first time. It was his second visit to Grand Junction, Colo., in conservative Mesa County, where John McCain spanked him last year, 64 to […]
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Obama in Grand Junction
Promoting his health care package, President Obama will appear Saturday, August 15 in Grand Junction, Colorado, where some of Western Colorado’s angry natives are primed — by right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck and others — to vent their opposition, not just to Obama’s health care proposal but to his presidency as a whole. Some […]
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A culture of violence
On July 12, a gang member brutally attacked a female police officer on the Oglala Sioux’s Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The officer was forced to shoot the suspect and is now in hiding with her family, said John Mousseau, chairman of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council, at a hearing in D.C. last month. […]
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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 […]
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Natural gas, the miracle fuel!
Geez, it seems like it was just a few months ago that the natural gas boom was busting and the drill rigs were sent a-packin’. Natural gas prices cratered, thanks to the general economic malaise, and big shale gas plays in other parts of the country really dug into the West’s drilling boom. Meanwhile, all […]
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Stimulus funding targets irrigation efficiency
Drought intensified this summer throughout California and most of the West. Already over-allocated, water supplies are short across most of the West prompting irrigation cutbacks, dewatered streams, endangered species conflicts and protests in irrigation-dominated areas like the west-side of California’s San Joaquin Valley. Drought also exacerbates water quality problems; less streamflow means more concentration of […]
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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 […]
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A Solar Plant a Tortoise Could Love
On the Web site of GreenBiz.com, Mark Gunther describes Bill Gross as “a serial entrepreneur” and “one of the most interesting business people I’ve known.” Gross is the guy who gave Google its paid-search idea. He likes robots. He has Google’s money invested in his electric car project (only fair, right?). He also may be […]
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Bribery slips under the border
It starts with a $50 bill. Then $5,000, just to look the other way at the port of inspections. Suddenly the formerly-loyal U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer has become yet another link in the chain of corruption, bribery, contraband and violence that plagues the southern border. And he’s not the only one. An Associated […]
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West Nile figures trickling in
The Centers for Disease Control say that only 35 cases of the West Nile virus have so far been reported in the United States this year, but the season is just getting started: late summer and early fall are the times when most infections occur. Of the 35 cases, 19 are in the West and […]
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A pleasing discovery
In general, I think it is no coincidence that the words “travel” and “travail” have the same root — the Latin word “tripalium,” a three-pronged instrument of torture. But on occasion, there are pleasant surprises. It was time for Martha and me to visit our daughters (and grandson) in Oregon. In the past, […]
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HCN’s favorite Tweeple
You may be one of those people who thinks Twitter is some kind of narcissistic echo chamber. That it’s a place where folks broadcast their breakfast to the world in 140 characters or less. Well, yeah. Still, even the social media skeptics here at the High Country News have gotten swept into the Twittersphere and […]
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“Impossible to remain silent”
When Laura Amos of Silt, Colo., was diagnosed in 2003 with a rare adrenal condition, she began to suspect that it had something to do with four natural gas wells less than 1000 feet from her home. After EnCana Corporation drilled the wells in 2001, the family’s tap water resembled fizzy, gray soda pop. Amos […]
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The rural West, on clearance
Statistics released by the USDA yesterday paint a sobering economic portrait of the rural West. The agency reported declines in agricultural land values across the country for the first time in more than 20 years. And it’s the Mountain states that have been clobbered worst of all. Montana farmland values fell a whopping 22.2 percent […]
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California sun and spray
California’s farmworkers support an $11 billion industry, making the state the nation’s leading agricultural producer and exporter. But their working conditions are often difficult – they’re exposed to harmful pesticides and dangerous levels of thirst and heat. Now, the LA Times reports that the state is considering approval of another hazardous pesticide, and it’s facing […]
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Crossroad at the foot of a mountain
Lilacs bloomed on the corner next to the hostel. A freight train rumbled through the little downtown, the third one in the past hour; the swirling clouds of railroad noise carried echoes of Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie. A block south of the tracks, a black Irish beauty from New York stood in front of a coffee shop, […]
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Fire and Smoke
Back in June of this year I did a GOAT Blog post on the wildfires that burned during the summer of 2008 in Northwest California. In October of 2008 I posted a commentary on reasons why western wildfires are getting larger. Included in the June report was the controversy that arose in Northwest California last […]