Beyond depleted salmon runs, the pandemic has created occupational hazards and a depressed salmon market.
Economy
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
In cash-strapped Wyoming, a community votes for a new hospital
As the state cuts funding for public services, cities and counties are figuring out how to go it alone.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
New wind projects power local budgets in Wyoming
As the pandemic hit the fossil fuel industry, renewable energy projects filled community coffers.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2021: No Place Like Home
How the Zoom boom is changing the West
Remote workers are flocking to Western towns.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2021: No Place Like Home
When COVID hit, a Colorado county kicked out second-home owners. They hit back.
How a group of nonresident homeowners tried to influence a rural Colorado election.
Posted inArticles
Ski communities are ‘getting crunched on all sides’
The pandemic has heightened cost-of-living issues in resort towns.
Posted inArticles
Lawsuit over proposed fossil fuel railway in Utah moves forward
The plaintiff says funding earmarked for the project was meant for communities ‘to alleviate the boom and bust cycle of energy production.’
Posted inArticles
Local climate efforts cut costs and carbon in Wyoming
As the state doubles down on fossil fuels, towns chart their own path.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2021: No Place Like Home
Tracking the seasons of pandemic response in Seattle
Disaster researchers take a Prius-eye view of how COVID-19 is changing the city.
Posted inDecember 1, 2020: A Community Divided
Divided prospects: The fight over an immigration detention center
When a private prison company came to Evanston, Wyoming, local officials believed an economic revival was at hand. Instead, it unleashed a bitter debate.
Posted inArticles
Will the extraction industry’s economic turmoil blight Colorado?
Questions about gas well maintenance, clean up and public safety rise amid bankruptcies in the sector.
Posted inNovember 1, 2020: When the Smoke Clears
How a pandemic-related drop in Oregon Lottery revenues could lead to a rise in invasive plants
Spiky-stemmed gorse pushes out native plants — and COVID-19 is imperilling measures to keep it in check.
Posted inNovember 1, 2020: When the Smoke Clears
Indigenous data sovereignty shakes up research
In the COVID-19 era, tribal nations want research in service of their people.
Posted inOctober 1, 2020: Democracy's Frayed Western Front
Energy dominance or climate action: Trump, Biden and the fate of public lands
In Grand Junction, Colorado, the presidential election is a choice between two distinct energy futures.
Posted inOctober 1, 2020: Democracy's Frayed Western Front
Sage advice
The ecological and ethical problems of ‘smudging.’
Posted inOctober 1, 2020: Democracy's Frayed Western Front
When home is next to an oil refinery
All I knew about Wilmington, California, was poverty, so I long hid my connection to it.
Posted inOctober 1, 2020: Democracy's Frayed Western Front
In a small Montana town, there’s a thing with feathers. Hope? Not so much.
Maxim Loskutoff’s debut novel explores the fraught history of the Bitterroot Valley.
Posted inArticles
Alaska’s salmon are getting smaller
New research finds some species diminished by as much as 10% and that the climate crisis may be a driving factor.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2020: The Next West
The failures of U.S. immigration policies
Three new books challenge the way we imagine the U.S.-Mexico border.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2020: The Next West
Marlon’s hustle to survive
The unforgiving economy left by the pandemic leaves many undocumented people without a safety net.