Most weekdays, a long line of rail cars delivers thick slabs of steel to a factory about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. Deep in the bowels of California Steel Industries, the slabs are toasted until they glow white-hot and then rolled into thin sheets used to make shipping containers, metal roofing and car wheels. […]
California
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Economy, distrust complicate allocation of tribal settlement money
When the Obama administration announced in April that it would pay 41 tribes some $1 billion to settle a lawsuit over federal mismanagement of trust funds, many saw it as a sort of stimulus package for Indian Country — a chance to invest in long-term development and infrastructure, such as schools, clinics and roads. “The […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Book review: Quilts: California Bound, California Made 1840-1940
Quilts: California Bound, California Made 1840-1940. Sandi Fox 208 pages, softcover: $40. University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Quilts are cherished both for their warmth and for the memories they hold, so it makes sense that they were among the sparse belongings early immigrants brought with them by horse, wagon, ship or train to California. In […]
Posted inWotr
Giving names to smoke and fire
We name fires the way we name hurricanes, giving them the identity that comes with our naming. Naming our fears also makes them a little more manageable, which is probably the main reason we go to the doctor, seeking a word for what ails us, because having that name is at least as comforting as […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
The Salt Pond Puzzle: Restoring South San Francisco Bay
FREMONT, CALIFORNIA We were on patrol. Caitlin Robinson-Nilsen, a young biologist in shades and a ponytail, steered the 4WD Explorer along a muddy levee in Fremont, Calif., and I rode shotgun, staying vigilant. She surveys snowy plovers –– adorable, six-inch, two-ounce, skittering shorebirds, with black collars and eye-patches –– as the waterbird program director for […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
L.A. activists try to stop woodlands from becoming sediment dumps
The list price was $1.125 million in August 2011, when Sotheby’s International Realty held the first open house for 1674 Highland Oaks Drive, in the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia. Scented candles burned, classical music played and the air conditioner ran as potential buyers milled through the home’s three bedrooms, living room and combination den/dining […]
Posted inWotr
Feeding the deer
I live in a California mountain town that’s perched on a ridge that ascends toward the higher Sierras. The place was initially called Dogtown, and it boasts the distinction of being the site where California’s biggest-ever gold nugget was found. The town was supposed to be called “Magnolia,” but the poor spelling and/or penmanship of […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
Water-quality standards unfairly burden rural communities
Updated 12/14/11 When Clarence Aragon began managing the half-century-old Mora Mutual Water and Sewer Association 12 years ago, he thought he was helping the environment. Hundreds of households around Mora, N.M. — a small river-valley community on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains — flush wastewater through subpar septic systems, sending trickles […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2011: Growing a Revolution
California’s high-speed rail is slow to gain speed
Fourteen countries have high-speed rail networks; in just a few years, 10 more will. Yet America’s primary bullet-train attempt is faltering in California, a state that will add 20 million people in the next two decades and needs to find a way to schlep them around. Estimated costs for the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s plan […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Ganjanomics: bringing Humboldt’s shadow economy into the light
One evening last October, I met with Anna Hamilton in the Northern California town of Garberville. A singer-songwriter with a barbwire voice, Hamilton is known locally for her radio show, Rant and Rave, Lock and Load and Shoot Your Mouth Off — which, it turns out, is a pretty good description of her approach to […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2011: Obama and the West
Obama’s record on Western environmental issues
In the late fall of 2008, the staff of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility gathered at the Airlie Retreat Center in Virginia’s horse country to plot strategies for a new day dawning: Barack Obama had just been elected president, promising fresh progress on issues that had frustrated environmentalists throughout the eight years of […]
Posted inArticles
High Country Views, Big solar marches on
This fall, the federal government began putting serious muscle behind solar energy development on public land in the Southwest. In the past few months alone, the Interior Department has given the nod to nine large-scale solar farms in California and Nevada. The feds have had good intentions to kick-start renewable energy development on public land […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2010: California Dreamin'
California’s Tangled Water Politics
The Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta, formed where the two rivers meet in California’s Central Valley before flowing into San Francisco Bay, is the largest estuary on the entire West Coast of the Americas. But much of the Delta is a remote, labyrinthine wateriness that, for most people, exists only in the mind, wrapped in […]
Posted inApril 12, 2010: The Butterfly Sting
The Butterfly Sting
How a federal wildlife agent brought down one of the world’s most notorious insect thieves.
Posted inJuly 20, 2009: Thinking Outside the Timber Box
Cultural blight
Plant disease threatens traditions of California tribes.
Posted inJune 1, 2009: Voyage of the Dammed
California prepares for the next burn
Officials — and homeowners — start to accept the inevitability of wildfire
Posted inMarch 16, 2009: Innovate
Tarp Nation
Squatter villages arise from the ashes of the West’s booms and busts
Posted inSeptember 9, 2008: Reclaiming the low country
Cheewa James: Chronicler of the ‘Tribe That Wouldn’t Die’
Modoc: The Tribe That Wouldn’t DieCheewa James352 pages, softcover: $19.95.Naturegraph, 2008. With song and prayer, soil and prairie grass, Native American author Cheewa James recently honored the memory of her long-lost great-great uncle. Frank Modoc left his Oklahoma reservation for a Quaker seminary over 120 years ago, fell victim to tuberculosis and never returned. While […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2008: A fractured party
Manufactured homes for the birds
In California, frequent wildfires force conservationists to get creative
Posted inJune 23, 2008: Peace on the Klamath
Loves, losses and utter disasters
In 1967, Harry Lynch — a tall, gawky 20-year-old who seemed very much out of his element — walked into Ruth Carson’s writing class at a community college in Oakland, Calif., fulfilled an in-class assignment by writing a poem, and became an enduring, persistently enigmatic figure in his teacher’s life. Years later, Ruth, watching television […]