On December 31st, a 66-year old Cheyenne River Sioux man died after a doctor told ambulance drivers to “take him back to his residence or dump him in a ditch” because there wasn’t money for his care, recounted President of the National Congress of Indian Americans (NCAI), Joe A. Garcia, in his State of Indian […]
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Lend me a hand
The effects of global warming on plants and animals are likely to be as varied as the species themselves. Some will adapt; some will even benefit. But what does the future hold for those too slow-moving, slow-growing, or otherwise unable to make the best of things? Conservation biologists have been talking, many nervously and some […]
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Move over Yucca Mountain…
Construction is underway on a hush-hush repository deep beneath Wyoming’s Sweetwater County. What will it hold? Well, it’s not nuclear waste or a germ warfare facility. I’ll give you a hint: It involves a somewhat notorious science fiction author and, tangentially, Tom Cruise. From the Casper Star-Tribune (via the AP): Public planners . . .say […]
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TBD stands for…
…Texas Billionaire Developer. Ray Ring’s January essay told the tale of one Texas billionaire you shouldn’t trust. Well, here’s another to watch out for. His name is Billy Joe “Red” McCombs, and he might try to develop a place that’s near and dear to you! McCombs is the founder of one of the world’s largest […]
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Montana state senator proposes slaughterhouse
The shuttering of the last U.S. slaughterhouse in Illinois in 2007 and the tanking economy have created a glut of horses across the nation. Horse rescues have been filled to capacity. BLM wild horse auctions have drawn almost no bidders. These days you can hardly give a horse away, let alone sell one. Now comes […]
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Climate Bale Out
Stuart Strand takes climate change seriously, and I’m not just talking about the groovy recumbent bicycle he rides to work. The environmental engineer from the University of Washington was searching for a way to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere when he came across an intriguing report. Its authors suggested that annual […]
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Arizona hiker tracks climate change
Cool (so to speak) new study just published by researchers at the University of Arizona: Using records collected by an amateur naturalist and habitual hiker named Dave Bertelsen, scientists found that in the Santa Catalina Mountains on the edge of Tucson, the flowering ranges of 93 plant species moved uphill between 1994 to 2003. Average […]
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The Cone of Uncertainty
The effect of climate change on water supply in the Colorado Basin is so hard to predict that Marc Waage of Denver Water is working with his colleagues to revolutionize the way they plan for the future, using a model called the “Cone of Uncertainty.” The cone demonstrates the depth and width of our uncertainty, […]
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Meth in the West
The West continues to be the hot spot for meth in the U.S., leading the rest of the country with 65 percent of meth treatment admissions, according to a new 171-page study by the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health puts Nevada first in meth use, with 2.02 […]
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“Top-to-bottom” ethical review at Interior
The appointment of Ken Salazar as Secretary of Interior revealed – once again – the conflict in the Environmental Movement between the “establishment” (aka the “nationals”) and a set of newer and mostly western environmental organizations (aka the “grassroots”). The establishment generally praised the appointment while the grassroots expressed disappointment. But as GOAT Blogger Sarah […]
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An even more unlikely Shangri-la
Chalk up one for public input — the Utah Supreme Court has ordered that before a ritzy new ski resort can proceed, Beaver County must put the project to a vote. Locals have been angered by the Jenson brothers’ attempts to turn a popular fishing and backcountry recreation spot into an exclusive enclave with golf […]
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Hard left turn
Every day, it seems, I turn around and some big Bush-era decision governing public land has been tweaked, reversed, or otherwise flambeed. Today (Feb. 4), President Obama’s new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar canceled 77 controversial oil and gas leases near national parks and on wilderness quality lands in Utah. “In its last weeks in office, […]
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A dog day report card
For the rest of the country, Monday was Groundhog Day. But for Westerners, it was Prairie Dog Day. And the rodent’s in trouble all over the region, as bulldozers roll over its habitat, ranchers drop poison, and shooters go for target practice. Prairie dogs are now found in less than 10 percent of their original […]
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Bust! Bust!
Last summer, it seemed Colorado might take decades to descend from the staggering height of its natural gas boom. High-paying jobs out on the drill rigs were drawing everyone from heavy equipment operators to senior center chefs to unskilled laborers who might otherwise work in a grocery checkout line or the local 7-11. As a […]
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A different outdoor game
Too little, too late. Shoot first, ask questions later… If you can shake your head in disgust while you say it, you’ve probably found the right cliche for the environmental fiasco that surrounds the wall on our southern border. The Department of Homeland Security recently agreed to fork over $50 million to the Interior Department […]
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Legalize It
It sure didn’t seem like the kind of place where bloodied drug smugglers stumble out of the scrub after shootouts. But it was. On a holiday road trip to Mexico, my family and I stopped for the night at some friends’ house near Tubac, Arizona, a small community south of Tucson, about 15 minutes north […]
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Water buffaloes in the mist
You can get a decent sampling of the folks attending the 51st Annual Convention of the Colorado Water Congress at a Hyatt in Denver just by looking at the coat rack. Navy sport coats and professorial tweeds predominate, but there is also a camouflage fishing vest, fringed duster, and a smudgy Carhardt jacket. The Grand Mesa Ballroom is […]
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Whither the weeds?
Climate change is likely to expand the reach of some of the West’s least favorite plants — for example, see “Bonfire of the Superweeds,” HCN’s story on invasive buffelgrass in the Sonoran Desert. But a new study in Global Change Biology paints a somewhat more hopeful picture: Scientists predict that some invasive species, such as […]
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Solar sense
As of last June, the Bureau of Land Management had a backlog of 125 proposed solar projects covering nearly 1 million acres. And this month, the Interior Department ordered the BLM to create special offices in Wyoming, California, Nevada, and Arizona to speed permitting for those and other renewable energy projects on public lands. But […]
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Farm Bill conservation programs
As pressure mounts to reduce agricultural crop subsidies, Farm Bill conservation programs are increasingly important to the bottom line of many American farms. This trend is expected to continue as Brazil, India and other developing nations insist that free trade deals include an end to American and European crop payments which they rightly claim distort […]