From the unintended consequences department comes a sad tale of dying birds in Nevada mining country. Across the Silver State, hundreds of thousands of plastic pipes used to mark mining claims kill untold thousands of birds, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Birds fly into the pipes looking for a place to nest and, unable […]
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Another try for wilderness
Browns Canyon in central Colorado is again getting promoted for wilderness designation. It was one of 18 areas in nine Western states identified in a recent report by the federal Bureau of Land Management with “significant local support for Congressional protection.” The area sits six miles south of Buena Vista, and even if it’s called […]
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The ranchers who turned the tide against the XL pipeline
By Lisa Song, InsideClimate News Connie and Leon Weichman had just finished branding some calves Monday when Connie’s niece texted her the news: TransCanada, the Alberta-based company that wants to build an oil pipeline through the middle of the United States, had finally agreed to reroute it away from the Nebraska Sandhills where the Weichmans live […]
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Landing a land transaction
A Wyoming congressional representative is trying to resurrect a federal land sale act to reduce the budget deficit and help the National Park Service end a long quest to capture a Grand Teton inholding. The Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (pronounced “flit-fah”) was enacted in July 2000 to allow federal agencies to sell off disposable […]
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Trampled by tourists
In the five years I’ve been an environmental journalist, and during the previous several seasons I worked in conservation, helping manage and mitigate recreational impacts on public trails in Colorado, I’ve often heard the argument that maintaining a constituency for environmental protection depends on getting as many folks as possible out into the places most […]
Posted inRange
Does Pew’s ad on the roadless rule get it right?
Editor’s note: Sharon Friedman blogs on forest policy at “A New Century of Forest Planning” and will be posting occasionally on the Range blog. In the Denver Post this morning, I saw the full page ad you see here below. I couldn’t figure out how to link to it, since it was an advertisement, but […]
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Obama sides with big business over small cattlemen
When four companies control 80 percent of the supply in a marketplace, even the most conservative economists would likely admit the potential is high for market manipulation. This is the case in the world of meatpacking, where four packers — Tyson, Cargill, JBS and National Beef — rule the scene. That’s why, last year, the […]
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Friday news roundup: Road rage and a wild lands successor
Several Utah counties and the state think the Bureau of Land Management is playing troll in a billy goat saga by limiting access to several hundred road segments that cross public lands. County and state officials want to wrest road control from the BLM, and hope U.S. District Court Magistrate Brooke Wells will grant them […]
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Changing the way renewables are funded
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House In the months since Solyndra’s collapse, there have been many inquiries into who knew what and when, and why this particular company was chosen to receive $528 million in loan guarantees. Did the White House hand-pick Solyndra as a quid pro quo for campaign contributions? Did the Department of Energy […]
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A Flood of Fault
—John McPhee, Atchafalaya, 1987 The Army Corps of Engineers’ Missouri River Division is not the place to work if you have a pathological need to be liked. That’s because the Corp’s water management priorities on the Big Muddy involve a crazy-making number of stakeholders, each with different and often conflicting interests. There are downstream barge […]
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Rants from the Hill: After 10,000 years
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Wanting to climb one last mountain before winter shuts down the high country until June, on Veteran’s Day I headed with my buddy Steve to Mount Augusta, a 10,000-foot peak in the remote Clan […]
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The (slowly) changing face of energy country
Change often comes quickly to energy country. Take Williston, N.D., at the heart of an oil boom which has more than doubled the state’s oil production since 2008. Williston mayor Ward Koeser recently told NPR that in just a few years’ time, the town’s population has grown from 12,000 to an estimated 20,000. And he […]
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Spotty enforcement in the gas patch
Multiple choice question: Last year, Colorado collected $1.2 million, Wyoming $15,500, California $13,123 and New Mexico $0, for fines associated with what activity? A. Poaching of big game animals B. Misleading labeling of food items C. Oil and gas drilling D. Late returns of library books Unless you’ve been in solitary confinement for the last […]
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Jack rabbit surprises
A small mention in a column in my local newspaper last week sent me scurrying to Google and other databases to find out more. The topic? A recent decline in the black-tailed jack rabbit (Lepus californicus) population. Okay, it’s not that I’ve ever been all that interested in jack rabbits, though now I’m kind of ashamed of that. […]
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Where soldiers come from
By Bill Bishop, the Daily Yonder Where Soldiers Come From – New HD Trailer from Heather Courtney on Vimeo. Heather Courtney recalls that she was “frustrated,” troubled by “how small town America was often portrayed in the mainstream media.” She said she wanted to make a movie that would “tell a story about my rural […]
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Friday news roundup: Sulfide statutes and Jesus statues
EPA reinstates reporting requirements for a poisonous gas To the relief of citizen advocacy groups (and the irritation of industry), the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its decision last week to lift a 17-year-long Administrative Stay on Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements for hydrogen sulfide — a poisonous gas that smells like rotten eggs and […]
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Dead wolf sprouts wings
Wolves do get around – but none more so than one that was already dead. Wolves are well known in the animal world for roaming long distances. Radio collars equipped with GPS have put new details in this marvel. One Oregon wolf covered nearly 300 miles this fall, simply looking around. Even so, the peregrinations […]
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Big money bill could restrict bighorn management
Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson isn’t sheepish about legislative appendages. First it was a grazing rider that would allow the Bureau of Land Management to transfer permits without environmental review. His latest — also tacked to the House’s 2012 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations bill — could decide the fate of a wooly battle […]
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What would John McPhee do?
Cross posted from The Last Word on Nothing When I’m thrashing through the brambles of a first draft, no story in sight, I have one reliable lifeline. WWJMD? What would John McPhee do to get himself out of this #%&! mess? This, after all, is the guy who found fascinating stories in Alaskan placer mining. And the […]
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Mapping the West … in air polluters
If you happen to glance over the fantastic air pollution investigation jointly released by National Public Radio and the Center for Public Integrity this week (along with a handful of other cooperating media outlets that did regional stories), you might think to yourself: “Thank (insert deity here) I don’t live in the Midwest, East or […]