This issue looks at borders – physical, ecological and otherwise. The feature investigates how a wall would affect the Borderlands region in the U.S. and Mexico, while a correspondent examines how borders around protected public lands in Alaska may be opened to oil and gas exploration. And, finally, an essay ponders the intertidal zone on the Oregon coast, and the thin biological line that divides humans from a tide pool’s ‘primordial soup.’

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Disparaging words needed

In response to Brian Calvert’s editor’s note, “Science Matters,” (HCN, 2/19/18), in which he claims to get letters asking him to “stop disparaging the president,” I say: “Disparaging words needed, more than ever.” Anyone who reads and supports HCN and is offended by disparagement of the president does not, in my opinion, support the goal…

by Jim McGannon

Health, abuse and freedom

As a holistic wellness counselor, I can relate a little to a parent’s desire to make his or her own decisions about a child’s health (“Idaho protects the rights of faith healers. Should it?” HCN, 2/19/18). But how, in any sane universe, is it not child abuse to withhold medical care and allow a child…

by Novella Maia

Keeping the faith

Like many such articles, this was one-sided and glossed over important issues regarding state control of our bodies and families (HCN, 2/19/18). I was baptized into the First Church of Christ, Scientist at the age of three days, and while I no longer attend church regularly, my faith is an important part of my life,…

by Mike Settell

Public action, public voices

Since President Donald Trump’s swearing in, the environment seems to be particularly under attack. The public has become less and less informed about government plans for our public lands, which has resulted in our being unable to comment on environmental issues. If large energy corporations can take thousands of acres of public land to drill…

by Isabella Gukeisen

Sold out

Thank you, Jonathan Thompson, for your great writing and for exposing “The Big Sell-Out” (HCN, 2/19/18). The “orphaned wells” story in the same issue could have just as easily been titled, “How the ‘Third Man’ always gets the shaft.” The Koch brothers’ American Legislative Exchange Council, as one dark-money example, writes legislation and buys legislators…

by Sean Doyle

Water is that water does

Certain types of groundwater issues are often complicated by our antiquated water laws and regulatory framework (“Fight over household wells complicates rural growing pains,” HCN, 2/8/18). To the hydrogeologist, and when it comes to real conditions on and in the ground, there is no distinction between surface and groundwater. Groundwater feeds streams and streams feed…

by David Ek