Last month, three little girls, ages 8, 5 and 2, and their mother, were killed in a Wyoming flash flood that washed away their van. It was the kind of torrential downpour climatologists predict will increase as the planet warms. Their father survived. He alone can speak of the horror of trying to save his […]
Climate change
Posted inAugust 22, 2011: Looking for Balance in Navajoland
A bad bargain
Your article “Fumigant fight” points out that, “without an effective replacement (for methyl bromide), growers could face lower yields, costing an estimated $100 million per year” (HCN, 7/25/11). However, the purchase and application of methyl iodide is not free. Farmers are interested in net profitability, not merely revenues. Perhaps, the real negative impact on pre-tax […]
Posted inGoat
Haze be gone
When I started researching regional haze rules a few months back, a source warned me that I was wading into the Clean Air Act’s wonkiest, most technically complicated depths. I remember her asking me something like: “Are you sure you want to go there?” Which is to say, you’d be forgiven if you paid little […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
Yellowstone leak highlights a different kind of oil spill
As modern rivers go, the Yellowstone is relatively unadulterated. It’s the longest dam-free river in the U.S., rushing 692 miles from its headwaters in Wyoming’s Absaroka Mountains through Yellowstone National Park and Montana’s Paradise Valley and eastern plains, to its confluence with the Missouri. Cutthroat trout, vanished from much of their native range, still hold […]
Posted inAugust 8, 2011: Ganjanomics
‘Grab the bucks, gimme the jobs’
Forgive me if I am wrong in thinking it incongruous that pretty much the same people who are very cranked up about leaving our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars in debt don’t seem to care about leaving them with environmental catastrophes related to fracking and other shortsighted “grab the bucks now, give me […]
Posted inRange
How troubling is ocean acidification?
By Jennifer Langston, Sightline.org This post is part of the research project: Northwest Ocean Acidification Not every commercial fisherman is convinced that curbing carbon emissions is necessary to stop global warming. But the evidence that fossil fuel pollution is making the oceans more corrosive—and removing building basic building blocks of the marine world—starts to get […]
Posted inWotr
Ice matters
“Now I know a glacier,” said Leon, a playwright from New York. We sat across from each other in front of a small driftwood fire, the cool Alaskan evening wrapping us in darkness. Leon had just spent five days with me as an artist-in-residence in the wilderness area where I work. Each day, our near […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
The fight over a much-needed pesticide: methyl iodide
In May, on a farm outside of Sanger, Calif., a man in a white hazmat suit and a gas mask drove a hulking tractor over bare ground, injecting toxic gas 12 inches deep in the soil. Behind the machine, plastic tarps unrolled like Saran Wrap over the land to contain the chemical. In the next […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
Where’s the science?
High Country News has a well-deserved reputation for reporting that explores the complexities and subtleties of environmental issues. “Wolf whiplash” was a jarring contrast that blamed repeated legal action by environmental groups for recent legislation that removed wolves in five states from the endangered species list (HCN, 5/30/11). As the story suggests, this legislation opens […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
Living in a world of hurt
I’ve been aware of fracking for many years (HCN, 6/27/11). But until the relatively recent controversy over its effect on well water in Pavillion, Wyo., I was less informed than I should have been. Development of any energy source has consequences. Rampant development of fossil fuels puts regulators way behind in preventing environmental catastrophes, and […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
Prove it already
The EPA cannot prove communication between oil and gas wells and potable water sources (HCN, 6/27/11). I discussed your fracking story with a friend who is a petroleum chemical engineer, and he believes only one well in a thousand may have communication. He believes poor cement jobs on the casing are more the culprit than […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
Fancy a drink?
Thank you for publishing Abrahm Lustgarten’s important article about Louis Meeks and his damaged water well (HCN, 6/27/11). Mr. Meeks is clearly a hero in the 21st century American West. EnCana Corporation once prided itself on utilizing “best practices” in the production of gas wells. So I was encouraged when EnCana spokesman Randy Teeuwen spoke […]
Posted inWotr
Famous or obscure, our rivers are priceless
I have never visited the Louisiana Gulf Coast or Alaska’s Valdez Bay, but like you, I carry indelible mental images of spewing pipelines and oil-soaked seabirds from the environmental disasters that happened there. Now the images are hitting closer to home. The Yellowstone River runs the length of my home state of Montana like a […]
Posted inRange
If polluting was a criminal offense, would it happen as much?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Whenever I hear the term oil “spill” — which seems too often lately — I cringe. Not just because the environment has taken another one on the chin, but because it makes the incident sounds like a tipped glass of milk that can be mopped up with a napkin. […]
Posted inGoat
After Yellowstone River oil spill, domestic water well testing trickles in
When nearly 42,000 of gallons of crude oil rushed down the Yellowstone River July 1, the Environmental Protection Agency said its first concern was human health. Individuals and communities downstream of the spill who have long used it as a clean drinking water source must now await results as the agency tests their wells for […]
Posted inRange
It’s getting hot out here
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House The numbers are in and—it’s official—our new “normal” is warmer. Starting this month, when a day is declared colder, snowier or hotter than usual, it won’t mean what it used to. Up to this point, the U.S. Climate Normals have encompassed a three-decade period from 1971 to 2000. A […]
Posted inGoat
Doing the unspeakable
Can the U.S. take a big bite out of its greenhouse gas emissions without muttering the words climate change? The Obama administration is betting it can. And it’s testing the political waters with a new round of vehicle emissions rules to cover cars made between 2017 and 2025. From the Washington Post’sJuliet Eilperin: Heather Zichal, […]
Posted inGoat
Reclaiming TSCA, One Chemical at a Time
In 1976, when the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) passed Congress and grandfathered-in some 60,000 untested chemicals, any regulatory hold the EPA could have had on manufacturers slipped quickly from their fingers. Simply by the sheer volume of substances already used in the United States, the agency fell far behind on reviewing the chemical inventory […]
Posted inBlog
Freedom Ride West: Toxic Reality
Editor’s note: James Mills is journeying around the West, exploring issues of diversity in Western national parks. Port Arthur, TX is a long way from Colorado. But when Texas environmental justice advocate Hilton Kelley delivered a message to the Mountain Film Festival in Telluride, he demonstrated an activist power that transcends that distance. The 32nd annual Telluride […]
Posted inGoat
The Sound of … Journalism?
They say sex sells. But does music teach? This seems to be the case with a couple recent music videos — one on the potential health hazards of hydraulic fracturing (which we’ve covered quite a bit here at HCN, from lack of regulations to health studies to health hazards in the chemical mix) — and […]