It’s been 20 years this month since the Berlin Wall was dismantled, marking the beginning of the end for the Iron Curtain that once separated Eastern Europe from much of the western world. But according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, some of the region’s wildlife still hasn’t forgotten the man-made boundary that interrupted […]
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Posted inRange
Reader Photo: Ice on Hall Mountain
This week’s HCN Reader photo looks like a magical sunrise in a winter fairyland. Although much of the West remains cloaked in the fall-to-winter transition, bits of winter peek through here – we thought this image offered a nice preview of what’s to come. Add your photo to our reader pool on Flickr – we […]
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Commitment issues
Today, for the first time in 15 years, leaders from the United States’ 564 federally recognized Indian tribes met with political leaders in DC to discuss the problems that blight their communities: lack of adequate health care, lack of adequate employment, lack of, well, a lot of things. The day-long summit began with opening remarks […]
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Coming soon to MTV: The Oilfield Blowouts
Don’t ask me how I found this. Okay, go ahead and ask: I was actually hard at work researching a story and, during one of those long, winding, fruitless trips down Google lane, I stumbled upon this. It was at roughneckcity.com, which is such a cool site that I’m hesitant to share it with all […]
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Mules aren’t burros
Lately I’ve encountered two novels which annoyed me because they treated burro and mule as synonyms, which they are not. The most recent was Abandon, by Blake Crouch; the title of the other one does not leap to mind. Mules and burros are related, but they’re not the same animals. Start with the […]
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Indian Eco-battles
Today the Arizona Republic wraps up an excellent three-part series on coal, water and green jobs conflicts on Indian lands in northern Arizona. Sunday’s story focuses on the Navajo Generating Station near Page, responsible for pollution haze over the Grand Canyon and ranked as the nation’s third-largest emitter of nitrogen oxides by the EPA, who […]
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Wanna hunt here? Just sign this petition
Landowners unhappy with government regulations are protesting this fall — by locking out hunters. Fred Hirschy, a Montana rancher, says he’s been losing cattle to wolves and is fed up with the lack of response from Montana’s wildlife department, reports The Montana Standard. For years Hirschy had allowed moose and deer hunters onto his land […]
Posted inRange
All Science is Political
Earlier this month, I was privileged to be part of a keynote panel at the 10th Biennial Conference for research on the Colorado Plateau. I chose, in part, to talk about the relationship of science and public policy making, because I had just finished writing an essay on that topic for the soon-to-be-published science assessment […]
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Poisoned plains
When Kaput-D enters a rodent’s bloodstream, it causes the animal to bleed through several orifices. In a matter of weeks, the rodent might bleed through its skin, becoming weaker and more susceptible to predators. Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity submitted official comments to the Environmental Protection Agency against the pending approval of the […]
Posted inRange
A Halloween Horror
This is my first Halloween as a dad. As the October days have waned, I’ve grown increasingly excited to check out the nearby Halloween costume store to find a perfect trick-or-treat outfit for my new baby girl. The other day, with permission from baby’s mama, we finally went. The ghoulish masks, wicked wigs, and gory […]
Posted inRange
More gas, less grouse
By Courtney Lowery, NewWest.net guest blogger, 10-27-09 A new study shows that sage grouse, up for Endangered Species listing in February, will face even bigger population declines in the Mountain West if energy development progresses as Bureau of Land Management expects it to. The three year study, published earlier this month in the peer-reviewed PLoS […]
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The debate that drags on
How long will the health care reform debate drag on? The Hill newspaper says “deep into December and possibly beyond by a lengthy floor debate.” If that seems like a long time, consider that the reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act has been pending since 1999. Last week hearings were held in the […]
Posted inRange
The Delta Blues
There is a saying in the West that water flows toward money. That saying seems to be playing out in California this fall.The California legislature is currently considering legislation that some say will fix California’s water woes and others say is intended to result in more North State Water going to powerful agricultural corporations and […]
Posted inRange
Reader Photo – Basque Dancers
This week’s reader photo seemed to all-too-perfectly match the theme of the latest issue of High Country News, which focuses on “cultural collisions” and those bringing new traditions to the West. While our recent reporting highlights cultures new to the West, this image, from the Trailing of the Sheep festival in Idaho, shows cultures that […]
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Eco-pawprints
Has it come to this already? Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living is the name of a new book written by two Victoria University professors, Brenda and Robert Vale. The couple — both architects who specialize in sustainable living — have computed the carbon emissions created by pets, taking into […]
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Cold War clean-up
Stimulus funds are now being used to tackle one of the West’s biggest nuclear messes: The 65-year old atomic dump in Los Alamos, N.M. is finally getting some much-needed attention. On Thursday the New York Times reported that a team of workers using $212 million in federal stimulus money will clean up the site on […]
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Well hell, continued
Watch what you drink in the Yakima Valley. Groundwater contaminated with nitrates and bacteria, which is pumped by private well owners for drinking, is turning the lower valley into “the toilet bowl” of Washington, as one resident puts it. Dirty drinking water is a “widespread and long-standing” problem in the valley, according to the Yakima […]
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Recession blessings
Christina Davidson, a correspondent for The Atlantic, has been touring the country on a “Recession Road Trip.” One recent stop was in Lolo, Mont., where local rancher Tom Maclay has been trying to build a major ski resort called Bitterroot on Lolo Peak. Some ski runs have already been cut. Now it […]
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More on that big sucking sound from Vegas
If you’ve enjoyed HCN’s coverage of Las Vegas’ groundwater machinations, you should tune in to this interview. From KUNC, Community Radio for Northern Colorado: In the latest in our occasional series of conversations with the writers at High Country News, Editor Jonathan Thompson tells KUNC’s Kirk Siegler that (massive water pipeline) projects are back under […]
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HCN Reader Photo: Yellowstone Thermal Pool
I’m continually amazed and inspired by the beauty captured and posted in photographic form by High Country News readers at our HCN Flickr Pool. Not only are readers capturing the beauty of the West, they’re cataloging their fascinating explorations and keen observations of the landscape they call home. It’s getting harder and harder to choose […]