Aspen, Colo., and other mountain resort towns burst with wealthy baby boomers’ second, third and even fourth homes. But for much of the year those houses sit empty, and the towns are turning hollow
Also in this issue: The Bush administration halts three gas wells on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, and tosses a few more election-year bones to environmentalists and hunters.
‘Green elephants’ abandon Bush
Republican conservationists pine for the days of Roosevelt and Goldwater
Energy industry is rigged
In your recent story about Colorado’s renewable energy initiative, representatives of the big utility companies have faithfully called upon the magic of the free market, claiming that the citizens are “artificially picking winners and losers in the energy debate” (HCN, 9/13/04: Colorado voters hold the cards on renewable energy). Missing from this story, as usual,…
Here’s a mosquito solution
An important ally was omitted from your article on safer ways of mosquito control (HCN, 9/13/04: Communities search for a safer way to kill mosquitoes). It’s a humble and reviled creature with considerable ability to patrol the skies between dusk and dawn: the bat. I sympathize with the interviewees in the article. Long ago, I…
I’m celebrating!
Sorry that the politically correct police have spoiled your celebration of the Lewis and Clark expedition, but they haven’t spoiled mine! I’m both commemorating and celebrating the glorious achievement of the Corps of Discovery (HCN, 8/16/04: Journey of Rediscovery). It seems like our culture is no longer permitted to celebrate the seminal events of our…
Kerry cares about Indians
In a recent question and answer session at a conference for minority journalists, a Native American panelist asked George Bush about his view of tribal sovereignty in the 21st century. Bush’s answer clearly showed he pays little attention to Native American issues. He babbled that sovereignty was “just that, sovereignty.” The audience laughed awkwardly at…
How to deal with oil and gas development
As America’s thirst for petroleum and natural gas grows, energy companies are scouring the West for new sites to drill. Now, there’s a new guidebook and Web site, Oil and Gas at Your Door, that gives landowners a preparedness primer for the day that an oil and gas company man comes knocking. Produced by the…
Follow-up
New rules that require retailers to label where fish come from have gone into effect — sort of. The new rules, which were mandated under the 2002 Farm Bill, require fish and shellfish to be labeled as “farm-raised” or “wild-caught,” as well as identified by their country of origin (HCN, 3/17/03). The only catch is…
Calendar
Visit Boise, Idaho, for the U.S. Forest Service?s conference on fire and forest health. Entitled “The Next 100 Years,” the conference, from Nov. 18-19, will feature Stephen Pyne, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, former Idaho governor Cecil D. Andrus, D, and Forest Chief Dale Bosworth.Andrus Center for Public Policy: www.andruscenter.org 208-426-4218 The American Geophysical Union?s meeting…
Racetrack
Environmental groups are worried that a proposition on California’s ballot may limit their ability to sue corporations that violate state or federal environmental laws. Proposition 64 would repeal a section of the state’s Unfair Competition Law that allows state or local attorneys or members of the public to sue a business for “unlawful, unfair and…
Despair not one more day
“… My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” — Adrienne Rich History shows that the proverbial rock can be rolled, if not to the top of the mountain,…
Heard around the West
COLORADO Mach schnell, little doggies: Thanks to a German TV reality show, five frauleins, age 20 to 61, are riding horses, flinging ropes at calves and fixing fence at a working ranch in New Raymer, in eastern Colorado. Selected from over 1,000 applicants who want to become cowgirls, the women face a daunting prospect, reports…
Californians take a stand on GE crops
Farmers fear a ballot initiative may takedown a tried-and-true rice variety
BLM’s crown jewels go begging
National Landscape Conservation System remains underfunded even as visitors increase
Second homes, by the numbers
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Part-Time Paradise.” Percentage that Summit County’s population has grown since 1990: 98 Percentage of Summit County homes that are second homes: 67 Percentage of second homes in five Colorado mountain counties occupied from April to June: 12 Percentage of second-home owners in Pitkin County…
Former Enron CEO took his money and ran
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Part-Time Paradise.” Former Enron CEO Ken Lay made out like a bandit, in a manner of speaking, when he sold his three Aspen houses and a land parcel in the wake of the energy giant’s bankruptcy. Lay sold a six-bedroom, six-bath house on more…
Can Vail find room for its workers?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Part-Time Paradise.” When suspicious fires swept through a mountaintop restaurant and several chairlifts in October 1998, the resort village of Vail realized it had problems — and not just with the “ecoterrorists” of the Earth Liberation Front, who claimed responsibility for the blazes (HCN,…
As the town hollows out, one Aspen neighborhood thrives
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Part-Time Paradise.” A few years ago, it was a Superfund site. Now the Smuggler Mobile Home Park is a vibrant neighborhood, whose residents have a wide range of incomes — from police officers and ski instructors to doctors and real estate brokers — in…
Part-Time Paradise
Mountain towns echo with construction activity, but the resulting homes lie silent much of the year
Don’t expect Washington to lead the West
It’s election season, and President Bush is using the West as a political game piece. He’s promising to up the timber cut on the national forests and increase oil and gas development, all in the name of jobs and national security. In reality, of course, he’s earning points with his industry supporters, but doing little…
Dear friends
A lesson the First Amendment Writer and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams came to western Colorado in early October for the 24th annual meeting of the Western Colorado Congress. She spoke to a packed auditorium about the “open space of democracy.” Williams, who just published a book by the same name, talked about the differences that…
In presidential politics, the West is a forgotten time zone
The other night, we were channel-surfing and hit upon the Miss America pageant. The contestants were being asked questions, and the one on the screen was “What year did women get the vote in the United States?” The answer, according to the pageant judges, was 1920, when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was…
Election-year environmentalism
The Bush administration throws enviros and hunters some bones
Dems stumble in Arizona race
One of the environment’s dirty dozen leads in congressional ‘fair fight’
Environmental issues disappear into election-season smog
If you care about the environment, and you survived the presidential debates without running out into the backyard to scream at the heavens, you’re a bigger person than I. For those of you who missed them, the three debates included just one question on that “fringe issue” of what’s in the air we breathe, and…