NORTH DAKOTA Give a cheer for cheeky Fargo, mocked as backward a mere decade ago in the movie Fargo, which featured locals spouting the stereotypical, “Yah, you betcha.” You can call the city “trendy” now, says the Los Angeles Times. Pricey condos have been built downtown, culture has arrived in the form of sushi bars […]
Colorado
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Colorado Senate race steps into national spotlight
Democrats look to regain seat and hold the line in the U.S. Senate
Posted inApril 12, 2004: The One-Party West
Heard around the West
IDAHO Are cows getting smarter? Every year, several cows make a break for freedom from barns in Bonneville County to go a-wandering. Resistance is futile. What was different this spring was the feistiness of a 1,000-pound black Angus. “We’ve been raising cows for 20 years,” said the owner, “and never had anything like this happen […]
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
Who will take over the ranch?
As a real estate frenzy grips the West, conservationists scramble to save a disappearing landscape
Posted inMarch 29, 2004: Who Will Take Over the Ranch?
One national park could tell the truth about the West
The Black Canyon in western Colorado is one of the world’s most splendid examples of the depths to which erosion and uplift can go. A steep gash in ancient granite, nearly 3,000 feet deep — only 40 feet wide at its narrowest, and not a whole lot wider at its rim — the Black Canyon […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Gas well slated for state park
COLORADO/NEW MEXICO That loud sucking noise you hear from the San Juan Basin comes from 20,000 gas wells. Now, industry is targeting a state park for one more well pad. Navajo State Park, home to Navajo Lake — “Colorado’s answer to Lake Powell” — is owned by the Bureau of Reclamation, which built Navajo Dam […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
More lynx, less habitat
COLORADO A U.S. Forest Service proposal for managing the threatened Canada lynx could pull the rug out from under a $2 million effort to restore the reclusive feline to its native Colorado habitat. The lynx was considered extinct in Colorado until the state Division of Wildlife released 129 into the wild, beginning in 1999. So […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
Can’t we all just get along
“Mud wrestling” might be the best term for what happens when we try to hash out messy environmental issues, says a recent report from the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado-Boulder. But the West is full of talented scientists who can help pull us out of the ring if we’d just […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
President Bush should consider a “land grab” of his own
I flew into the sprawling city of Phoenix recently not expecting a nature experience or a political revelation. My colleague and I rented a car and, after an appointment in the city, fought through an hour of bumper-to-bumper afternoon traffic on our way north to Flagstaff. What a relief it was to finally see the […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2004: Courting Disaster
Big cats on the block
In The Beast in the Garden, David Baron weaves a compelling parable of man and animal, of the Old West and the New West, of wildlife that is no longer wild. Looking back at the history of mountain lions in Boulder County, Colo., over the past 150 years, he writes about our changing relationship with […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Does Wal-Mart really need our tax dollars?
Typical of shopping centers built decades ago, Alameda Square in Denver is a cheap, single-story strip of stores. It’s ugly and rundown. But that does not deter shoppers: Mostly Asian Americans, they come from miles around to patronize more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses, including two grocery stores, two restaurants, a hair salon, a clothing […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Wilderness activists look on as the Bush administration gives oil and gas drillers first crack at the West’s last wild lands
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Proposed wilderness on the auction block
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Two decades of hard work, plowed under.” The following areas, which are proposed by citizens for wilderness protection, will be up for grabs during the BLM’s January/February 2004 lease sale. WIA = wilderness inventory area CWP = citizens’ wilderness proposal New Mexico (Jan. 21) […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
A gift of supreme excellence
It is good to be writing again. The mountains have snow, the air is cold, the sun is shining. It is a good November day, and I have been thinking of this idea of sovereignty, an almost foreign word here in Antonito, Colo., where there is so much poverty, and where most of us, to […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
Heard Around the West
CALIFORNIA Remember that New Yorker cartoon, the one where a plump pussycat looks at its behind in a mirror and asks: “Does this collar make my butt look too big?” Well, humans are passing on their overeating habits to pets. Medical researchers warn we’re also bad influences on wildlife: Bears in the Lake Tahoe area […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
Water law for dummies
There’s nothing worse than being stumped during a dinner conversation while attorneys and professors quarrel over the intricacies of water law. Now, Coloradoans can dive right into those debates, thanks to a new booklet that translates state water law into plain English. The Citizen’s Guide to Colorado Water Law, by the nonprofit Colorado Foundation for […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
Reweaving the river
Farmers and ranchers — not ‘yuppie environmentalists’ — work on a Colorado restoration
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
BLM sinks local input to drill Roan Plateau
Local and environmental concerns tossed by the wayside in western Colorado
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
Heard Around the West
MONTANA For 30 years, says biologist Charles Jonkel, he’s tried to educate people about grizzlies and black bears. He started an International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Mont., 28 years ago to spread the word that ethical standards were needed for making films about the animals. Nonetheless, he says, thrill-seeking has gained ever-wider prominence, with […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Out of the darkness
A Western Colorado community meets a coal boom halfway