Dear HCN,
I just finished skimming
the Escalante article (HCN, 4/14/97) and while I found the stories
interesting, it seemed that they were more of what has become
common in High Country News – anecdotal reporting without
investigation.
On page 10, Roger Holland says
that the Andalex coal company would only disturb “2.5 million tons
a year off of 40 acres.” Is that 40 acres per year? For how many
years? What about roads, facilities, powerlines, housing for
miners?
I am disappointed because High Country
News seems so caught up in discussing socio-economic impacts that
it often neglects environmental aspects of an issue. “Human
interest” may be what sells papers, but we have People magazine and
the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel for that. This reader (and
others, I suspect) would like some in-depth reporting that goes
beyond Ronald Reagan-like anecdotes (OK, so your examples were
real) to facts and the whole
picture.
Norm
Mullen
Grand Junction,
Colorado
The writer is Western
Slope representative for the Colorado Environmental
Coalition.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline More digging, less human interest.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
