Phoenix, Ariz., is determined to disprove the idea that the West will someday run out of water and that every boom has to come to an end.
Also in this issue: Newly appointed Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has a chance to use his deal-making abilities to bring change to the way Western public lands are managed.
The Latest Bounce
Asbestos victims in Libby, Mont., can now qualify for Social Security disability benefits. In late May, the Social Security Administration, under the prodding of Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., issued a new ruling that allows victims of tremolite asbestos to receive disability benefits. More than 1,500 Libby area residents suffer from exposure to tremolite asbestos, the…
Mexican wolves face a rocky road to recovery
Mexican gray wolves have nearly disappeared from the Southwest — again. This spring, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inadvertently killed most of the members of a pack of 12 wolves in eastern Arizona. In April, the White Mountain Apache Tribe asked the agency to remove the Hon Dah pack from reservation lands after the…
Solar companies roll the dice
Gambling that the economics of energy are changing, two new companies have proposed building the largest solar power plant in the world. New Solar Ventures and Solar Torx, both based in Phoenix, Ariz., plan to construct a solar power plant and a factory to manufacture the necessary photovoltaic cells. The 300-megawatt plant near Deming, N.M.,…
We can do better for immigrants
Thank you for your in-depth articles regarding Mexican immigrants’ desire for a better life through better pay here in the U.S. (HCN, 5/15/06). The existing U.S. immigration policies for those entering legally and illegally are abysmal and need to be changed. Let us not forget that we, as a country, were all immigrants once. We…
Immigration brings chaos
Immigration is the most formidable weapon of mass destruction threatening America today (HCN, 5/15/06). Ironically, invaders have put our country at risk without firing a shot. The White House, the heavies in Congress and the smaller fish in state legislatures do not seem to have the collective intellectual depth or common sense to see what…
Thanks for the immigration reporting
Your thoughtful, perceptive articles on immigration have finally given me as much understanding of the Mexican migrants’ views as I — a WASP woman — am ever likely to get (HCN, 5/15/06). I’ve read dozens of articles, but you clarified the questions fairly, vividly and with compassion. Even in Cheyenne, an hour from Greeley, I…
Make Mexico the 51st state
Your immigration story “Apprehension” quoted U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Officer John Schaefer as saying “All enforcement stops within 80 miles of the border” (HCN, 5/15/06). Not so! I live in a village of 800 approximately 150 miles from the Mexican border via crow flight, much longer by any system of roads. Our village law…
The Zephyr is still important
John Fayhee quotes Heidi McIntosh, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance’s conservation director: “At one time The Zephyr was important” (HCN, 5/29/06: Clinging Hopelessly to the Past). That really got my attention, my outrage. Seven words of dismissal, the meaning crystal clear: Public disagreement with SUWA automatically puts The Zephyr in gulag territory, no longer relevant,…
The noisy democracy of the West
The problem seems unavoidable: Historian Peter Decker wants to write about what he knows and loves, his adopted home in rural Ouray County, Colo. But his passionate prose is sure to spark more visits from outsiders, perhaps helping to destroy the very isolation that he cherishes. The first edition of Old Fences, New Neighbors appeared…
Trading goods, and stories, on the reservation
In the 1920s and ’30s, many Navajo Indians traded for flour and coffee at Will Evans’ Shiprock Trading Company. Among them were survivors of the infamous Long Walk, the 300-mile forced march that sent the tribe into temporary exile in eastern New Mexico in 1864. When yet another battle-scarred Navajo limped into the post, Evans…
Making room for wolves
What do you get when you ask 50 people — only a handful of whom have actually ever seen a wolf — to write about new ways to “think about (wolves), imagine them, and welcome them home”? There are the inevitable odes to friendly wolf-dogs, and some wild stuff about kids suckled by volcanoes. But…
Interior’s new secretary — general or foot soldier?
Will Kempthorne’s deal-making prowess be enough to get something done?
Empty pods and pleasant graveyards
Back in the 1960s, when I was a Los Angeles kid, LAX airport planned a big remodel. Regional bigwigs envisioned a futuristic structure of some kind, so the architects went on a Jetsons jag and suspended a gleaming streamlined pod on two sweeping steel parabolas. It would be the theme building for the whole airport,…
Heard around the West
THE BORDER On a Web site called Gizmodo, which caters to computer gearheads and other gadget collectors, we found a controversial offering a few months ago from Argentinean artist Judi Werthein. She has designed running shoes for illegal immigrants that feature a built-in compass and flashlight, a pocket inside the shoe’s tongue for aspirin or…
On a wing and a prayer
Gunnison grouse must fend for survival without help of Endangered Species Act
Tribes look to cash in with ‘tree-market’ environmentalism
Carbon banking could help restore forests and fight global warming
‘Miss Fish Hatchery’
Name Jenn Logan Vocation Wildlife conservation biologist Age 33 Home Base Alamosa, Colorado Known for Her efforts to protect and save endangered fish She says “I love the challenge of persuading a person to care about suckers or toads.” The very walls were chirping: There were crickets in every crack and cupboard of Jenn Logan’s…
Fishing ban will make us forget salmon
When the Bush administration originally announced its intent to ban ocean fishing of chinook salmon along 700 miles of southern Oregon and Northern California coastline, many people in my hometown sneered their approval (HCN, 3/6/06: Fishermen blamed for salmon troubles). With the exception of a brief, limited and most probably token fishing season last summer,…
The Perpetual Growth Machine
Arizona sets out to disprove the notion that someday the West will run out of water
Adapt or collapse
In his most recent book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond examines the rise and fall of civilizations ranging from Easter Island in Polynesia to the pre-Columbian Mayan and Anasazi. All of them faced a similar combination of problems: climate change, rapid population growth and resource depletion among them. And all…
Dear friends
CHANGES AT HCN High Country News is searching for its next editor in chief, following Editor Greg Hanscom’s announcement that he’ll be leaving us at the end of the year, after 10 years with the organization. HCN’s former associate editor, Matt Jenkins, apparently got lost en route to California, where he was planning to set…