The Granite Mountain Record Vault is a veritable temple, a slightly more natural- and secure-looking version of the one in Salt Lake City, not far away. A spiritual glow even radiates from the arched entrance to its tunnels (at least in this promotional photo). But this vault holds way more folks than the spired House […]
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Posted inRange
Meditational rant on the word “pristine”
This morning my local radio station aired an ad which referred to the natural environments of California’s North Coast. It was for an outdoor store; listeners were encouraged to enjoy our regions river, beaches and pristine mountain tops. This really gets my goat. I’ve been on most of those mountain tops over the past 35 […]
Posted inRange
The 2012 Farm Bill dance begins in DC
Last week the Agricultural Committee of the US House of Representatives began work on the 2012 Farm Bill with a kick-off hearing. I happened to be in DC at the time and I stood in line with lobbyists for farm groups waiting to get a good seat in the wood paneled hearing room. I was […]
Posted inRange
New West, New Dust Bowl?
By Courtney White. Originally posted on NewWest.net, 4-28-2010 The apparent declining interest in the environment among Americans was much on my mind as I attended the 21st Annual Southern Plains conference in Lubbock, Texas, recently. Organized by the nonprofit Ogallala Commons, the event focused on a famous date in environmental history. No, it wasn’t the […]
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Sovereignty versus stewardship
Last month, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) released the draft of a bill intended to “unlock the potential of Indian energy resources.” The bill would amend the Energy Policy Act of 1992 to ease restrictions on extractive industry’s activities on tribal lands, including the elimination of federal drilling fees, the reduction of federal environmental oversight, and […]
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo: Wrangler and Little Cowboy
This week’s featured reader photo is one of the entries to our current photo contest, The People of the West. You can enter your photos that capture the West’s people to this contest until May 9, 2010. Check out our contests page for more information on this and other writing and photography contests celebrating HCN’s […]
Posted inGoat
It’s a skunk-eat-pelican-eat-trout world out there
Each spring, on the shores of Nevada’s Pyramid Lake, fishermen in waders stand 50 feet out in the water, on stepladders, casting long, narrow loops for huge Lahontan trout. They look a little like Kodiak bears lined up on an Alaskan river. But, these men aren’t the only fishers around. American white pelicans glide long, […]
Posted inGoat
Myths about myths
You’ll probably soon hear about the “five myths about green energy,” if you haven’t already. They’re the talking points of a book to be published this week, Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future by Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He wrote […]
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EJ for Earth Day
I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try. – Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of […]
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Out of tragedy, High Country News soldiers on
“1978, the year the Senate shortchanged Alaska?,” asked the cover headline of the Sept. 8 High Country News issue that year. The article outlined the Senate “horsetrading” over the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the bill that in 1980 ultimately created or expanded 15 of Alaska’s national parks and preserves. The article contained only […]
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Next stop: water on tap
This weekend, thousands of Navajos will pile their trucks with 55-gallon drums and drive to the nearest watering station. If they’re lucky, the lines will be short, the coin-operated water pipes will work, and they’ll return home with enough to drink, wash and cook for another week. Hauling water is a common chore in the […]
Posted inRange
Listing the wolverine
On a sunny day in late March 2010, a young wolverine known as F3 poked her head out of the mouth of a log-box research trap in Montana’s Absaroka Range, looked around, and then, in a blur of snow, surged off into the wilderness. Around her neck was a new GPS collar that we’d fastened […]
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More than a starter castle
Tom Chapman, the land developer whom just about everybody loves to hate, is at it again. Chapman’s specialty is buying inholdings — private land surrounded by public land — and then either developing them, or threatening to develop them until he gets a good deal. He’s been the subject of many articles in […]
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No s#%@w
One look at the Oregon landscape, and you wouldn’t suppose “squaw” is a dirty word. Roughly 130 geographic locations in the state are labeled with the S-word. S- creeks, S- mountains, S- lakes and S- peaks — it’s found all over the place (and not just in Oregon, as HCN has reported). This June, however, […]
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Women writing the West
Over the weekend, I drove to Denver for The Association of Writers and Writing Program’s annual conference, which assumed a bit of a Western theme this year. Poets and writers overran the downtown convention center, sampling from a myriad of readings and panels. One of these focused on the challenges women writing west of the […]
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HCN Reader Photo: Teton Summer
We might be a little premature in posting this photo, in April, since it represents the Tetons in August. But it’s such a lovely picture, and gives us something to look forward to: long summer days with beautiful views. It’s great to live in the West. Add your photos to our Flickr pool; we pick […]
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A model for community environmental participation
“A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both.” – James Madison As any first year medical or law student can probably tell you, a patient facing an invasive medical treatment must first give the doctor her “informed consent” […]
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Waste not … or get nukes
A few weeks ago the New Mexico Environmental Law Center’s media director, Juana Colon, suggested I should write a blog post about policymakers’ recent embrace of nuclear power as just a way to enrich the world’s economic elites while at the same time continuing to subject poor and minority communities to various kinds of radioactive […]
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Limiting Las Vegas
The conclusion of a new report by the Sonoran Institute—that Las Vegas’ water supply can’t keep up with its interminable appetite for growth—isn’t particularly surprising. But it is timely. The recent pummeling Las Vegas took from the recession presented the ballooning city with an opportunity to catch its breath. As the Las Vegas Sun puts […]
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Black Mesa mine mess
A controversial clean water permit for a coal mine complex sited at a Navajo and Hopi sacred mountain is once again up for review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Peabody Western Coal Company seeks a renewal of its water quality permit for the Black Mesa/ Kayenta Mine Complex, despite the mine’s impact on […]