As companies drill for ‘unconventional’ natural gas, environmental impacts mount
Colorado
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Heard around the West
COLORADO A deliciously funny film called The Lost People of Mountain Village wowed audiences at Telluride’s Mountainfilm festival and other venues around western Colorado. In deadpan style, the 15-minute pseudo-documentary explores what happened to the overlords who once lived above high-altitude Telluride. The joke for locals: The “town” of Mountain Village always feels abandoned by […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Dear friends
HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE The staff of High Country News cordially invites all readers and friends to our holiday open house. It will be at our Paonia, Colo., office at 119 Grand Avenue on Wednesday, Dec. 7, from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Feel free to bring a treat to share; we’ll provide beverages. PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Heard around the West
NEVADA You’ve gotta love Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas: He doesn’t hesitate to trumpet what he thinks, no matter how over the top. Appearing on a TV program in Carson City recently, the mayor sounded off on lawbreakers who spraypaint graffiti over freeways. “These punks come along and deface it,” he said, according […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Doubling density near Durango
After two decades of trying to hold the line against an increase in oil and gas drilling, commissioners in La Plata County recently signed deals allowing two energy companies to double the density of coalbed methane wells near Durango. Now that the companies’ infill applications have been approved by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Crossing hearts on Colorado’s plains
Laura Pritchett’s first novel, Sky Bridge, is set in “Nowhere, Colorado,” on the ranchland east of the plains town of Lamar. In this tiny place assaulted by big forces — climate change, the global economy, federal policies — teenage narrator Libby finds the prospects slim: “… all my old schoolmates are either doing drugs or […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Commuter trains could connect the West’s far-flung cities
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Back On Track.” Even as light-rail lines promise to revolutionize transportation within the West’s metropolitan areas, longer commuter rails could connect these far-flung cities in ways they have not since railroad’s glory days a century ago. Unlike light rail, which uses overhead electrical lines, […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Dear friends
THANK YOU The cottonwood leaves are piling up along the North Fork of the Gunnison River, not far from the HCN headquarters. Inside, contributions to the Research Fund have been fluttering in. Many thanks to all who have contributed to the fund so far this fall; it’s what pays our writers, editors and photographers to […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
The Latest Bounce
The Department of Labor has denied a whistleblower’s complaint that the BLM fired him in retaliation for exposing violations of federal law in a mine-cleanup project in Yerington, Nev. (HCN, 12/20/04: Conscientious Objectors). Earle Dixon supervised the cleanup of the abandoned copper mine for the BLM, and repeatedly complained publicly about inadequate efforts to deal […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Dear friends
WELCOME, LUTHER! HCN welcomes new board member Luther Propst, the executive director of the Sonoran Institute. The nonprofit institute works with Western communities to promote stewardship, conservation and local economies. VISITORS University of Denver associate geography professor Don Sullivan dropped in with a pack of students after being snowed off nearby Grand Mesa, where the […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Dear friends
HELLOS AND GOODBYES The High Country News board of directors met in Santa Fe in late September, bidding farewell to two longtime members, and inviting five new people to join. Leaving the board are Emily Stonington and Michael Fischer. Emily, a state senator who raises sheep outside Helena, Mont., was one of the main forces […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Heard around the West
IDAHO A border collie adept at “child-herding, intense stares and home protection” has applied for a job with the city of Boise: He wants to chase Canada geese off the playing fields. In a letter purported to be from the herd dog, named Atticus in honor of the lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, he […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Boulder gets the gas-drilling blues
Energy companies are drilling holes straight through efforts to preserve open space on Colorado’s Front Range. Boulder County has saved about 76,000 acres from development by buying property and creating conservation easements. However, the county doesn’t always control the mineral rights underneath that land — which leaves the surface property open to drilling. Previous landowners […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Out of the Four Corners
A young archaeologist searches for clues to what drove a mass exodus from southwestern Colorado more than 700 years ago
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Dear friends
HELP! SEND BOOKS! Our hearts go out to all those suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina. We’ve recently learned about an unusual — and imaginative — way to assist the hard-hit region: Former New Orleans resident and author Janis Owens has created Books for Folks to send books to relief centers, libraries and schools […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Judge leaves Front Range cities mile-high and dry
For more than 20 years, a private company has wanted to move water from Colorado’s Western Slope to sprawling Front Range cities hundreds of miles to the east. Now, a judge has put a kink in those transmountain water diversion plans. In 1984, a state water court granted Natural Energy Resources Company conditional rights to […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Dear friends
High Country News recently helped host Forest Service whistleblower and sustainability advocate Gloria Flora, who spoke at the Paonia Town Hall on Aug. 26 during a tour through the West. Flora is best known for banning oil and gas leasing on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front in 1997, when she was a forest supervisor (HCN, 10/13/97: […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
Dear friends
Change in the Air Last month, we bid farewell to Laura Paskus, who has been HCN’s assistant editor for three years. But this isn’t really goodbye: Laura has moved to Albuquerque, N.M., where she will work part-time as our Southwest editor. The move is part of an ongoing effort to put HCN on the ground […]
Posted inWotr
Dear friends
SUMMER VISITORS We’re always a bit surprised (and pleased) that so many of you manage to find us, since Paonia, Colo. — HCN’s hometown — is really not on the way to anywhere. Rick and Susie Graetz from Helena, Mont., came by with two young friends from nearby Crested Butte. The couple founded Montana Magazine […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2005: A Military Town Fights for its Life
Cano’s Vision
Just outside the small town of Antonito, in southern Colorado’s sparsely populated San Luis Valley, a highway sign points to the state’s oldest church, a twin-towered sanctuary built of brick and local dark volcanic rock. A bit farther on, the towers of a very different sanctuary rise over a dusty neighborhood on the other side […]