The German philosopher with the impressively bushy mustache, Friedrich Nietzsche (below), said that all things are subject to interpretation. Had he lived in the Western U.S., he might have tacked on a clause: “Especially when it comes to water policy.” A House bill to be voted on this week hammers his point home, with policy […]
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Avalanches weren’t – and aren’t – only a backcountry threat
In the handful of times I’ve visited Missoula, Montana, the grassy slopes of neighboring L- and M-emblazoned Mounts Jumbo and Sentinel have never looked any more threatening to me than the hogbacked foothills that yaw out of the ground west of Boulder, Colorado, my hometown. Velvety, yes. Curved like a set of relaxed shoulders, yes. […]
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Putin’s Crimean invasion reaches into the West’s gas patch
When Russian troops invaded Crimea at the end of February, I couldn’t help but think back to a similar invasion 30 years ago, when Soviet paratroopers descended on the high school grounds in Calumet, Colo., their Kalashnikov’s blazing. They were joined by Nicaraguan and Cuban troops and aided by surgical nuke strikes on important cities. […]
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Are coal companies paying fair market value for leases on public lands?
Coal boosters are fond of decrying the Obama Administration’s supposed “War on Coal” – and to be sure, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations limiting carbon emissions from power plants aren’t doing industry any favors. But if there truly exists a federal campaign to depose King Coal, somebody in the administration forgot to tell the Bureau […]
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Illegal marijuana cultivation is devastating California’s public lands
Scattered throughout California’s public forests, authorities found 315,000 feet of plastic hose, 19,000 pounds of fertilizer and 180,000 pounds of trash on more than 300 illegal marijuana plantations in 2012 alone. The tally comes from a new video by the U.S. Forest Service, describing the extensive and alarming damage caused by “trespass grows” hidden within […]
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Even unpopular national parks are economic engines
Last summer, I visited Rocky Mountain National Park for the first time and, to be frank, was a little disgusted. Not by the park itself – the mountains were beautiful, even if the beetle-kill and $20 backcountry permits were disheartening – but by the salt-water-taffy-munching, airbrushed-tee-shirt-wearing crowd glutting the park’s gateway community of Estes Park, […]
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What I learned from Western royalty
During a symposium on natural resources and sustainability last Friday at University of Colorado, Boulder, law professor Charles Wilkinson took a look at a group of panelists that included two former secretaries of Interior, and in a moment of appreciation for their service, declared them “Western royalty.” No one said anything particularly groundbreaking at the […]
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Durango: The Best … town for those with lots of cash
For the third time in less than two years, I’ve been perusing the classifieds for a place for my family to rent in Durango, Colo., the town in which I grew up. Each time the pickings get slimmer, the prices get higher, and the process gets more agonizing. We’ve been driven to this masochistic ritual […]
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Rants from the Hill: IH8 DMV
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. I’ve always been impressed by vanity license plates—at least when they’re genuinely clever or funny—and have long thought that a little back bumper wit on my part might help my fellow Silver Hillbillies endure […]
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California’s drought is not about “fish versus farmers”
If there was a moment when the California drought fully entered the national media spotlight, it came earlier this month when President Obama swooped into California’s parched Central Valley and announced $200 million in federal emergency aid. The president’s visit came days after the announcement of a bill from California Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein and […]
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Fire suppression and illegal marijuana cultivation threaten rare Pacific fishers
The Pacific fisher, a small, carnivorous forest-dwelling mammal, is a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act this year, and big wildfire could be to blame – or rather, the lack of it. Ecologist Chad Hanson’s recent research on the fisher population of the southern Sierra Nevada shows that the animals – aptly […]
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Living with less water: Lessons for Californians – and the rest of us – from a New Mexico village
Let me start right off by saying that I failed. Miserably. Last summer I moved to western Colorado after spending most of my 29 years in exceptionally rainy places, and amid discussions of water rights and fights and rivers drying up and unraveling, I decided it would be a good idea to limit my own […]
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Climate-based wolverine listing delayed by scientific disputes
With thick fur and snowshoe-like feet, wolverines are well-adapted to live in snow caves and run straight up mountains. Their high elevation lifestyles have helped them stay out of harm’s way in recent decades, and stage a slow comeback from the rampant carnivore persecution of the early 1900s. Though elusive and tenacious, they won’t be […]
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Colorado first in the nation to regulate oil and gas industry’s methane emissions
The home of the West’s most pitched battles over oil and gas development is once more in the news for major energy policy reforms. On February 23, Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission voted in significantly stricter statewide rules governing air pollution from oil and gas development, including the nation’s first state-level controls on the industry’s […]
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The terrifying yet awesome beauty of the gas patch
Contrails feather out across the hard-blue February sky, and the unforgiving light of mid-morning accentuates the bright reds, oranges, and synthetic blues of the fake flowers at the foot of scattered headstones, mostly engraved with Hispanic names. A Virgen de Guadalupe statue, hands clasped together, miniature rosary and cross hanging from her neck, stares down […]
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Rate of undocumented immigrants winning deportation cases is on the rise, many still detained
It’s an interesting moment for immigration reform in the United States. The very phrase has come to symbolize the failure of the Obama Administration to push much meaningful change through Congress, since the Senate bill to create a 13-year path to citizenship for undocumented migrants floundered amongst GOP opposition last year. Perhaps it was the […]
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For native birds, cities may spread disease while still providing sanctuary
Ours is an increasingly urban nation – over 80 percent of the U.S. population now dwells in cities and towns, a figure that’s only rising. Nowhere is that trend more pronounced than in the West: Phoenix, Salt Lake City and Denver are among the country’s fastest-growing cities. Our metropolitan migration has environmentalists and planners dreaming of […]
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Groundbreaking “Sea Ice Atlas” aids Arctic planning and is really cool to boot
Back in the dark ages of the 1960s, the science of ice forecasting – predicting how much ice will be choking Arctic seas in a given month – was based more on intuition than science. Forecasters relied largely on memory and anecdotal observations, with results about as fallible as you’d expect. Sometimes, the dearth of […]
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$80k a year with a high school diploma: Why it’s difficult to replace coal-mining jobs
On a Saturday in early February, the wooden bleachers at the old middle school in Paonia, Colo. were filled with men in boots, camouflage hats and Carhartt jackets. Most were miners who had recently been laid-off by one of the North Fork Valley’s three coalmines. Stern-faced women sat beside them, some wearing pins that said, […]
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Terrorists, infrastructure porn and our fragile energy systems
They came shrouded by the early morning darkness near San Jose, Calif., equipped with night-vision goggles, AK-47s and an apparent lust to spill some transformer fluid. They cut some telephone cables and then, according to the Wall Street Journal: Within half an hour, snipers opened fire on a nearby electrical substation. Shooting for 19 minutes, […]