In my work with the tough coal and environmental justice issues in the Southwest and the tougher, diverse communities I am honored to work with here, I see at key moments a hope for the future that can’t be snuffed out. In the past few months, there have been historical and landmark events that continue […]
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Posted inRange
A loss to our heritage
As a history buff, I enjoyed reading the HCN article about the preservation of old missions in Arizona — until I got to the end, where I read that Don Garate had died on Sept. 21. I knew Don, though not well, thanks to our shared interest in Juan Bautista de Anza, a Spanish soldier […]
Posted inRange
Rediscovering the known
This may seem a “Shaggy Dog” story, and for that I apologize, but there’s no way to make my scholarly point without digressing into my past. The proximate reason is an announcement this week by the British Columbia Supreme Court requiring an investigative committee to release all information on sea lice infestations and disease outbreaks […]
Posted inGoat
New Mexico caps again
A New Mexico regulatory board took another stand against climate change last week, approving its second set of greenhouse gas rules in just over a month. The first round, OK’d by the state’s Environmental Improvement Board in November, laid the groundwork for New Mexico’s participation in the Western Climate Initiative, a regional cap-and-trade program, and […]
Posted inGoat
Solar setbacks
On Thursday morning, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), finally sunk a shovel into the ground for the transmission project every enviro loves to hate: The 100-mile, $1.9 billion, 500-kilovolt Sunrise Powerlink, slated to skim across desert-and-forest wilderness as it carries power to the hamlet sprawl along California’s southernmost coast. Arnold Schwarzenegger, ever more flamboyantly […]
Posted inGoat
Would you like some DDT with that organic cucumber?
Consumers might assume that buying organic means the produce they purchase lacks chemical residues and the farmers and farm workers growing organic crops aren’t exposed to toxic chemicals. This may not always be the case. Organic farmers across the nation must contend with the possibility that the land they farm has some of the very […]
Posted inRange
HCN reader photo – New Mexico moon
This week’s reader photo is simple, still, and lovely. It comes from HCN Flickr community contributor Justin Morris. Add your photo to our Flickr group too!
Posted inRange
Gasland — The Review
Editor’s note: David Zetland, a Western water economist, offers an insider’s perspective into water politics and economics. We will be cross-posting occasional posts and content from his blog, Aguanomics, here on the Range. [I guess that Rachel Carson’s work is not yet done…] JD insisted that I watch this documentary about hydraulic fracturing for natural […]
Posted inGoat
It’s not all lights and sirens
It wasn’t an abnormal day in most respects. No wreck-causing foul weather slicked the winding mountain roads. There hadn’t been an accident at any of the three underground coal mines just upvalley, where a steep canyon cradles the sinuous North Fork River. Even so, both of the ambulances that serve tiny Paonia, Colo. were out […]
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Small Nevada tribe sues BLM over coal ash landfill
At a Southern Nevada Health District public hearing this October, farmer Norm Tom said that he and his tribe had “seen a lot of death” in the last 35 years, and he placed the blame squarely on the neighboring Reid Gardner coal-fueled power plant, run by Nevada’s primary power company, NV Energy. “Every time we […]
Posted inRange
Is high speed rail becoming more viable in the Intermountain West?
By Allan Best If you look at a map showing federally designated high-speed rail corridors in the United States, the Great Plains and intermountain West look like some kind of giant inland sea. From Kansas City to Sacramento, it’s all blank. But representatives from several of the West’s metropolitan areas – Denver, Salt Lake City, […]
Posted inGoat
Goldilocks and the three bears
Once upon a time Goldilocks was hiking across northwest Wyoming and she met a big fierce grizzly bear. Grizzlies were once severely endangered throughout this part of the West, down to just over 100 bears in the 1970’s. But today more than 600 of these hostile bruins haunt the Yellowstone area. And this summer in […]
Posted inRange
Westerners and the White House
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson didn’t get far with his 2008 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, but that may not deter his immediate predecessor, Republican Gary Johnson, from seeking his party’s nomination as the jockeying for 2012 begins just after the 2010 midterms. Johnson served two terms as governor from 1995 to […]
Posted inRange
Weighing the costs of unobtainium
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House As this year comes to a close, anxiety continues to mount on how public and private interests in the US are going to get their hands on enough rare earth elements (REE) to maintain and grow the industries that rely on them. The race is on to strategize […]
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Pondering palm oil
On the surface, it seems that environmental justice should be one of those no-brainer, win-win concepts that everyone can support. Look a little deeper, however, and enacting environmental justice can become impossibly complicated and divisive. Few things exemplify this paradox more than the case of palm oil. In recent years this seemingly innocuous, rather boring-sounding […]
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Drill the parks
Flanked by fast food joints on its south side, the St. Vrain River on its north, residential development on the west and Interstate 25 on the east, St. Vrain State Park isn’t a reason for tourists to make a trip to Colorado. Its flat fields and cluster of ponds offer residents of Denver and its […]
Posted inRange
HCN reader photo – Desert cathedral
From HCN Flickr group contributor John Mumaw of Cortez, Colo., who writes: “The only cottonwood tree for miles around is nurtured and protected from a harsh environment by the cool, moist soil found in this unique, teardrop shaped sandstone alcove on the Utah/Arizona border. The hours I spent in here waiting for the light were […]
Posted inGoat
Fun with factory farms!
Mooooove over, Wisconsin. You’re quickly losing your dairy state cred to the West. Unfortunately for those of us who live beyond the 100th meridian, though, the usurped title of America’s Dairyland comes at a price. As factory-sized dairies colonize the West, they have significant effects on water and air quality, as well as quality of […]
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What’s old is new again
Two stories about mining projects in California that crossed my path last week remind me that some narratives just don’t seem to go away. Whether it’s taking advantage of gold’s record high prices or carving away at river-side hills for rock and stone, it seems a given that economic boons obscure questions about associated environmental […]
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Cobell, settled at last
Federal government finally accounts for money mismanagement of tribal nations.