WASHINGTON, D.C. – Every agency that serves American Indians and Alaska Natives must answer these questions in order to fuel the decision-making process: How much will it cost? How many people are served? And, by the way, who is an Indian? None of the answers are easy. The demand for federal services is growing as […]
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Another way to see immigration
A friend pointed me to an interesting article about immigration from Mexico, especially into the American Southwest. In essence, it argues that this is not some internal U.S. law-enforcement issue that can be resolved by intensive policing, like Arizona’s controversial recent effort. Instead, our Southwest is typical of borderlands throughout the world, and the current […]
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Who’s burning the forest?
High Country News’ recent feature on arson (The Fiery Touch, August 2nd edition) provides a fascinating look into changing attitudes toward citizens who light wildfires without official permission. Wildfire arsonists have gone from something like hero status to criminal status … at least in urbanized areas. But what interested me more was senior editor Ray […]
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New law empowers tribal justice systems
In late July, President Obama, an adopted member of the Crow Tribe of southern Montana, signed the Tribal Law and Order Act. The measure, introduced by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) in 2008, aims to smooth out the “jurisdictional maze” of law enforcement on reservations in order to empower tribal communities to better confront crime. Many […]
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Colorado’s bizarre primary
About 20 years ago, the Colorado General Assembly moved the state’s primary election from September to August. Cynics figured there was a reason, something like this: Coloradans are on vacation in August, or at least getting outdoors at every opportunity, so they’re not paying attention to politics the way they would in September. An August […]
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What a week for wind
On Tuesday, July 27, the Los Angeles Times reported the groundbreaking of the immense Alta Wind Energy Center near the Mojave Desert town of Tehachapi. The story described a facility “being called the largest wind power project in the country,” and its potential to generate three gigawatts of electricity for Southern California homes. Though light […]
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Rain rights
Let the water wars commence – or not. Douglas County will soon be the site of Colorado’s first large-scale rainwater harvesting project — an important step away from a more than century old state policy that made the practice illegal, perhaps without good reason. The Colorado Water Conservation Board voted unanimously last month to make Sterling Ranch, a […]
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Insect to Injury?
With plenty of doomsday hysteria circulating about the destruction of western forests from the mountain pine beetle epidemic, the U.S. Forest Service is attempting to allay fears about another beetle on the rise – a 2mm-long twig beetle, Pityogenes plagiatus knechteli, that’s killing younger trees in mountain pine beetle-affected areas throughout Colorado and Wyoming. First […]
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Tribe denies trash
Editors Note: This piece is cross posted from Mother Earth Journal, where reporter Terri Hansen writes about indigenous people and the environment. SPOKANE, Wash.—At the last minute, the Yakama Nation blocked a bid by Hawaii to ship their household garbage to a landfill that sits amid their ancestral lands in south central Washington State. U.S. […]
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Big Ag sells to Big Urban
Editor’s note: David Zetland, a water economist at the University of California, Berkeley 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’ve been participating in an email discussion about Westland’s plan to sell 50-100,000 acre feet of water […]
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Telemocracy #1
Greetings, earthlings, and other denizens of the West. This is the first installment of what will be an ongoing High Country News roundup of Western campaign commercials. I have scoured the interwebs, and picked out a few that are particularly great in their own special ways. In today’s episode, “If you can’t say something nice, put it […]
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Growth, economics and justice
As I fretted over what to write in my debut post for A Just West, my mind kept returning to a controversy I used to follow in my first two professional journalism jobs. At both the Pacific Coast Business Times and the Ventura County Reporter, I covered the story of truck traffic from rock aggregate mines in the Los Padres National […]
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Over the River controversy continues
The Bulgarian-born artist Christo specializes in gigantic installations — like wrapping the Reichstag in Berlin, or arranging hundreds of fabric gates in New York City’s Central Park. For the past decade or so, he’s had plans to return to Colorado with “Over the River.” (His first Colorado project, an immense curtain in Rifle Gap, was about […]
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Thinking broadly about dams in the West
It’s been a bad press week for dams. Last Saturday the Lake Delhi dam gave way, and the previous Tuesday the Tempe Town Lake dam literally exploded. The former disaster involved heavy rains swamping a 1920s-era dam on the Maquoketa River, while the latter resulted from a giant rubber bladder popping on the Salt River. […]
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Encounters with the Ex-Secretary
In two appearances at the Aspen Environment Forum this week, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior and ex-Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt seemed to revel in the impolitic. Offshore drilling is an “unregulated frontier culture full of cowboy operators,” he said during a panel discussion with Shell VP Libby Cheney, Consortium for Ocean Leadership president Robert […]
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One tough trout
Here’s the bad news: No fish has ever made it off the endangered species list without going extinct. And the good news: the Apache trout, an Arizona native, may soon become the first. Soon, in this case, is a relative term. The trout’s imminent delisting has been reported since at least 2007, but before it […]
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A water economist’s hot links
Editor’s note: This link roundup comes from David Zetland, a water economist at the University of California, Berkeley. We will be cross-posting occasional posts and content from his blog, Aguanomics, here on the Range. David Zetland Speed Blogging for Tuesday, July 27, 2010 Hattips to RT and JWT Originally posted at Aguanomics.
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The Heart of the Beast
As a kid in northern Wyoming, I watched my dad dump a five-gallon bucket of Powder River Basin coal into the heater in our living room every winter night before bed. I’d lean against the stove in my jammies, enjoying its warmth while a blizzard rattled the chimney pipe. Though most Americans never hear coal […]
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The meaning of marmot whistles
How about replacing Groundhog Day with a Feb. 2 Marmot Day?
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It’s getting warmer in here – and drier
A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) offers a mixed picture of how climate change will affect Western water supplies. Some places will see more moisture, most will see less. For the majority of the region, sustainability of water resources is set to become a serious problem. The study was conducted by […]