After years of court battles, an oyster company in a national park agrees to shut down.
California
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
The Latest: When wind and solar need reliable backup power
Western grid operators can now buy backup power on a real-time, open market to smooth intermittent renewables.
Posted inArticles
From saltwater to drinking water?
California considers desalination as a remedy for water woes
Posted inArticles
Offshore oil rigs can provide prime fish habitat
But will California’s platforms stay in the ocean once the oil runs out?
Posted inArticles
Obama declares new national monument in the mountains above Los Angeles
Trails, campgrounds and wildlands will qualify for federal funding for improvements.
Posted inArticles
The 21st century’s Hoover Dam?
What a huge Wyoming wind and Utah storage project tell us about the West’s energy landscape.
Posted inArticles
Female firefighters threaten to sue the Forest Service — again
Four decades after the first allegations of discrimination, some say little has changed.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Michelle Huneven writes about place, addiction and love
This California author examines lost years and life in the mountains.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Encouraging more ‘nerds of color’
A conversation with L.A. writer Jervey Tervalon.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
How my Californian father adapted to Utah
He found solace in growing fruit trees, but never quite made the Beehive state his home.
Posted inSeptember 15, 2014: Books & Essays
Masters of Dig: A tour of authorial abodes
Visiting the homes of my favorite writers
Posted inSeptember 1, 2014: Lost in the Woods
A dam difficult job
California’s drought through the eyes of a water manager.
Posted inArticles
Shaken and stirred in California’s recent earthquake
How seismic events can make drought impacts worse.
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
Metamorphosis in Winnemucca
The Days Of Anna MadrigalArmistead Maupin288 pages, hardcover:$26.99. Harper Collins, 2014. California author Armistead Maupin has returned with the ninth and final volume in his much-loved Tales of the City series. Maupin, who has long refused to be pigeonholed as a “gay writer,” writes about contemporary San Francisco and the love lives of both gays […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
The prickly pear as California crop
Can an overlooked succulent help salvage toxic soils?
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
The Ansel Adams Wilderness
The Ansel Adams WildernessPeter Essick, foreward by Jamie Williams112 pages, hardcover:$22.95.National Geographic Society, 2014. For 25 years, Peter Essick traveled the globe as a National Geographic photographer, and recently he was named one of the world’s 40 most influential nature photographers. In 2010, Essick began “a potentially controversial” project in his native California: shooting in […]
Posted inGoat
Was the fatal thunderstorm in California a climate phenomenon?
The weather of Venice Beach, California, where I live, is for the most part stable, and almost always predictable. No sudden squalls appear out of the southwest to chase skateboarders off their concrete ramps; never do we hear the civil-defense sirens warning of an approaching tornado. Living here, swimming and surfing at the beach a […]
Posted inGoat
California gears up to fine water wasters: Should we turn our neighbors in?
Five years ago, when south-central Texas was suffering through its driest year in more than a century, public officials in the city of San Antonio turned in desperation to a new tactic to enforce water conservation: They dispatched the police. From April of 2009 and on through the rest of the year, off-duty officers and […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Reflecting on groundwater from the Owens Valley Watershed
Growing up in the high desert, I learned water doesn’t just fall from the sky.