“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. A decade ago, when we first scouted the rural high country where we ultimately bought land and built our home, there weren’t many folks out here from whom to get stories of whatever might […]
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Quenching Colorado’s thirst
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Every winter in Colorado we watch our snowpack levels closely because they tell us how much water we’ll have in reserve for use on our farms and in our homes when the weather warms. Last week’s snowpack update showed that, due to a relatively dry January, supplies in […]
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Washington runoff causes stormwater stomachaches
By Lisa Stiffler Stormwater obviously causes problems for the environment and infrastructure, washing away salmon eggs in torrents of runoff and flooding basements. But does it threaten human health as well? You bet it does, and in ways that might surprise you. Polluted runoff flushes raw sewage across beaches, triggers blooms of toxic algae in […]
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Artificial Flooding May Help Grand Canyon
By David Frey, 2-09-11 When Glen Canyon Dam blocked the natural flow of the Colorado River to create Lake Powell, it unleashed a torrent of effects downstream, including in the Grand Canyon, where the once-muddy river became a blue waterway where native plants and animals struggled to survive. And they say the artificial flooding will […]
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Caveat emptor with eco-labels
Last September I noted that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) had drawn the wrong kind of attention when it certified the Fraser River sockeye fishery despite opposition from scientists and environmentalists. The MSC tried to counter its critics, but the controversy instead joined a growing litany of complaints about the substance of its fish labeling […]
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Official State Guns
As Betsy Marston noted in Heard Around the West recently, Utah lawmakers are considering an Official State Gun: the .45-caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol, designed a century ago for the U.S. Army and still in use by some American military personnel. It’s also a popular pistol for target-shooting and concealed-carry. The Utah connection is that the […]
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Does the California constitution hold the key to solving the state’s “water crisis”?
Western watermasters are the folks who make sure all water right holders on an irrigation system get a fair share of available water. Usually they like to maintain low profiles. That helps with a job which has potential to engender conflict, lawsuits and even violence. Watermaster Craig Wilson recently raised his profile when he spoke […]
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Washington’s bill of (coal-free) health
By Jennifer Langston Under a bill introduced today, Washington State would stop burning dirty coal for electricity within its borders. But aside from healthier air and clearer views of Mt Rainier, would the state’s electricity customers notice any difference? Probably not. Washington’s only coal-fired power plant – located n Centralia and owned by the Canadian […]
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Road rage on the Front Range
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Momentum is building for the construction of a controversial, 10-mile toll road through a wildlife refuge outside of Denver. Embroiled in the road row are warring counties, a powerful mining company and one man obsessed with asphalt. Now that it seems the road may become a reality, the […]
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The buffer battle
Back in 2009, I reported on new research indicating that “pesticide cocktails” — mixtures of common agricultural pesticides, including common off-the-shelf herbicides, and so-called “inert” ingredients — are more deadly to salmon than they are when used separately. That finding came about as part of a larger effort by the US EPA, the National Marine […]
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The peculiar geography of tragedy
Within hours of the Jan. 8 shopping-mall shooting spree in Arizona, there was already a journalistic term for it: Tucson, as in “How can we prevent another Tucson?” Tucson is a city with 544,000 residents where lots of things happen besides 19 people getting wounded, six of them fatally. People live, work, play and worship […]
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When emotion drives the wolf debate, research suffers
By Steve Bunk, 1-27-11 All the information out there, informed and uninformed, surely has raised awareness that wolves are important to many of us, whether by their presence or absence. But how good are we at recognizing and using accurate information to shape our opinions? As a former science journalist, what’s become clear in the […]
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HCN reader photo – chariot racing!
This week’s stunning image comes from photographer Daryl Hunter. It’s from a horse-drawn chariot race (the horses pull a cutter) in Jackson, Wyo.
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Is Recreation in the Rockies Becoming a Bigger Forest Service Priority?
By Steve Bunk, 1-25-11 The West’s outdoor recreational industry—including ski resorts, outfitters, and others—is on track to have a stronger say in how national forests are managed in coming years. A vigorous lobbying effort, in which recreational groups and politicians of Rocky Mountain states played key roles, has had a big impact on new regulations […]
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Health cuts and Indian Country
Journalists like me have played the role of Chicken Little for many years. We have written dozens of stories about the consequences of an election, predicting what will happen after Republicans win and fulfill their promises to drastically cut government. Only very little happened. Sure, there were significant budget cuts and restructuring of programs under […]
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The return of nullification
The “Doctrine of Nullification” may be known only to American history buffs, but that could soon change, for Idaho is about to resurrect it and several other states — mostly in the West — appear poised to follow. Put briefly, the Doctrine holds that states have the authority to declare a federal law unconstitutional and […]
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The Most Visited National Parks Could Be Self Sufficient
By Shawn Regan Visitors to national parks got into the parks for free this weekend, the first of 17 days in 2011 the National Park Service is waiving entrance fees. While it’s hard to complain about what seems like a free lunch, the NPS can ill afford such freebies. Its backlog in deferred maintenance projects […]
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Salazar goes wild
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? […]
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An anti-wilderness knee jerk
I guess it was predictable. No sooner had Interior Secretary Salazar announced that the BLM would manage certain public domain lands for their backcountry values, than the Farm Bureau Federation and its political allies went on the attack. According to them Salazar’s decision amounts to yet another “land grab” by the Obama Administration on behalf […]
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Celebrating Martin Luther King Day
I know how to celebrate most holidays. On Independence Day, I reread the Declaration of Independence and watch fireworks after dark. To bring in the New Year, I try to stay up till midnight. On Thanksgiving I feast with family, and so on. But I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to celebrate on Martin […]