With record snows and a robust economy, this has been a season of good fortune for the resort town of Crested Butte in western Colorado. Yet our future hangs in the balance as Congress wrestles with an issue that ought to concern Americans everywhere: reform of the 1872 Mining Law. How Congress proceeds could determine […]
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Who will work in the West’s future company towns?
One day last summer, I gave directions to two young Asian women on bicycles who were looking for the grocery store. Further chatting revealed that they weren’t tourists. In scattershot English, they told me that they were from Thailand and had come to Cody, Wyo., on temporary work visas to serve up hamburgers in Wendy’s, […]
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Gone geese
For the better part of a week, I’ve been driving around with the carcass of a Canada goose in the bed of my pickup. It lies there with the spare tire, the snow, the blue plastic box of emergency clothes, and an assortment of crushed pop and beer cans from last summer. Because of the […]
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Lake Powell’s sandstone walls speak after 232 years
Across the Southwest, Native Americans, explorers, miners, settlers and Mormon pioneers have left dozens of inscriptions on rock walls. Now, a rare historical marking has been authenticated on one of the canyon cliffs that surround Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The inscription was carved when the United States was only six months […]
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Bombing away in Socorro, New Mexico
Folks living in Socorro, in remote, central New Mexico, are regularly jolted by the sounds of car bombs and calculated cave-ins. It’s all cooked up by the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, a division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, known here simply as “Tech.” “Energetic materials” refers to anything that […]
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Hank, the non-cow dog
A story in my local Montana paper, the Missoulian, described the growing problem of family pets harassing wildlife and livestock. It seems that the expansion of urban life into the wild is taking its toll on deer, elk, cattle and all kinds of burrowing creatures. The story really hit home as my dog Hank, aka […]
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Running the gantlet of Homeland Security
Albuquerque’s international airport, dubbed The Sunport, ranks as one of the smaller and friendlier airports around. That’s important for Westerners like me. Since traveling became an uncertain business, being met by “our” people behind the counter, in shops and at the gate, goes a long way to ease nervousness for infrequent flyers. This is particularly […]
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Here’s a new way to think about Black History
Every February, the contributions of black Americans are recognized during Black History Month. Since I’m black and work for the Bureau of Land Management, a mostly white federal agency, I appreciate that. But I also have a complaint: Why has its observance become so predictable? By now, I am sure that everybody knows that black […]
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It’s time to call the gas industry’s bluff
There’s been a steep falloff in friendly chitchat around the local gas pumps, and no wonder. With diesel at $3.40 a gallon and gasoline only somewhat cheaper, it’s common to see someone drop $100 on a tankfull. A typical American family will spend more than $3,000 on liquid fuels this year, and another two grand […]
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Whatever we do about illegal immigration, somebody suffers
It’s 6:30, and I’m eating breakfast at a café north of Denver with a man I’ll call Bob. Born and raised in Denver, Bob sprays custom finishes on drywall and has owned his own company for 18 years: “At one point we had 12 people running three trucks.” Now, the business is just his wife […]
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When dams were young and gardenias a nickel apiece
My mother at 90 prefers the distant past to the present. When she sees the Tournament of Roses parade on television, she recalls coming of age during the Great Depression. When she hears that the nation might be sliding into recession, she tells me what hard times were really like. Her job during the 1930s […]
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Let’s reform the 1872 Mining Law – finally
Like many Westerners, I grew up with the luxury of unlimited adventure outdoors. I could wander around, fishing rod in hand, looking for the next hidden pond near my family’s cabin in northern Colorado. That was before I began working in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado as a mountain guide for a kids’ […]
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An octopus wants to eat the West
What’s 3,500 feet wide, 6,055 miles long and 2.9 million acres big? That’s wider than Hoover Dam, bigger than Yellowstone National Park and almost three times as long as the Mississippi River. This behemoth goes by the name of the West-Wide Energy Corridor, and if you live in the West it could soon devour a […]
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A bad idea hits the gas pumps
A quiet invasion is under way near my home in Colorado. Inconspicuous black stickers are appearing on gas pumps announcing the arrival of a new molecule looking to occupy gas tanks. It goes by the name of C2H5OH — ethanol. Typically, my consumption of ethanol is strictly oral, in the form of alcoholic beverages. But […]
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Wyoming hits a green roadblock
Will Wyoming’s vast coal mines be forced to cut back or close down during our lifetimes? When the current energy boom started in the fall of 2002-2003, just five short years ago, several commentators predicted that the state’s energy-based prosperity would stretch out for decades. I was certain of this, too. The prediction was based […]
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Like it or not, corn is in every meal
For the first time in history, the youngest generation alive today is at risk of a shorter lifespan than their parents. As we begin the 21st century, we have managed to take a great leap backward: We’re living shorter lives. We know why. It’s because of our poor diets, our alarming proclivity for fast food, […]
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Idealism wakes up in America
I am one of the thousands of returned Peace Corps volunteers that Chris Matthews of MSNBC predicted would support Barack Obama after he lit the fuse in Iowa. But I had already been tapped by Harris Wofford, a Kennedy-era warhorse and director of the Peace Corps program in Ethiopia, who is now stumping college campuses […]
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The West remains a mysterious region
This was supposed to be “the year of the West” in national politics. States that had been reliably Republican were suddenly competitive. Two Westerners — Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Republican, and, until he dropped out, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat — were credible candidates for the presidency. The Democrats will hold their […]
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Where do you draw the line?
As a journalist, I’ve watched many forms of civil disobedience in the West. I’ve known EarthFirst! tree-spikers and interviewed armed, tax-evading Freemen. I’ve seen “green” grandmothers lie down before bulldozers to stop the blazing of new logging roads across public land, viewed the carcasses of dead grizzly bears and wolves shot down by opponents of […]
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A country cousin visits the big city
Many people dread a call from their mechanic, since it usually means spending more money — perhaps the transmission really is shot or a battery has to be replaced. But recently, after my partner picked up her car, I received a call from our mechanic about a very different subject. Our answering machine picked up […]