CHASING CLEAR SKIES
In some less-populated places, the Milky Way’s glow can be seen on any clear night. But for many of us, seeing the splendors of the night sky means traveling far outside city limits to a place away from streetlights and other artificial illumination. Now, many national parks and Western cities are making an effort to limit light pollution. “Everything has its time and place, and the same is true of light and darkness,” astronomy author Bob Berman recently told NBC. “There is a place for darkness, and, I think that is slowly being realized.”
-Jodi Peterson
CAN WESTERN GOVERNORS GET WHAT THEY WANT FROM SCOTT PRUITT?
FROM FLAKE TO FLOW
The Western snowpack is an icy natural reservoir that delivers most of the region’s water. But the amount of moisture in snow varies. Monitoring how wet snow is across an entire landscape — information essential for forecasting water supplies and flood potential — is difficult. To figure out how to do it, about a hundred researchers converged on snowy, flat-topped Grand Mesa, in western Colorado, for an ambitious scientific treasure hunt in February. They took measurements and tested dozens of instruments, looking for the optimum suite of sensors to survey “the holy grail” of snow-sensing research: the amount of water held within the snow.
–Emily Benson
“When there’s no rehab facilities, what happens is people get arrested, and that’s their first respite of sobriety. … As a result, Craig is having to expand its jail for people that are there more increasingly for drug crimes.”
—Paige Blankenbuehler, speaking on the “West Obsessed” podcast about how she investigated opioid addiction in rural Colorado for her Feb. 20 cover story “Overdosed.”
FARMERS SAY CLEAN WATER RULE GOES TO FAR
In an opinion piece for The Conversation, an HCN partner, Reagan Waskom and David J. Cooper from Colorado State University take stock of which waters the Clean Water Rule protects. In February, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to revise the rule. With or without it, ambiguities in the Clean Water Rule have created regulatory uncertainty for farmers, ranchers and developers. If the Trump administration withdraws or weakens the rule, regulators are likely to interpret case-by-case whether tributaries and adjacent waters are covered, as they have since 2006. Repealing the rule won’t answer the underlying question: How far upstream federal protection extends.
RuthAnne Isbell: “Farmers are concerned with the environment, too, and not all think the (Environmental Protection Agency) should be abolished.”
Michael Stiehl: “The implications could have dramatic effects on interstate compacts, such as the Colorado River Compact, which supplies water from the headwaters states to such population centers as Los Angeles and also the Imperial Valley, not to mention Phoenix.“
Irene Hamilton: “Hope farmers aren’t getting scapegoated. Where does the puzzle piece of fracking fit in this ruling? Or does it?”
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline From Our Website.
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