The Bush administration’s rush to develop hundreds of thousands of coalbed methane wells in five Western states hit a roadblock Oct. 15. Two judges on the Department of Interior Board of Land Appeals ruled that the federal Bureau of Land Management has illegally leased methane rights without evaluating impacts. The BLM’s method of granting leases […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Utahns could kill radioactive dump
Note: this is one of several feature stories in this issue about the 2002 election. Writer Chip Ward once called Tooele County, Utah, “the most extensive environmental sacrifice zone in the nation.” Covering a swath of the surreal West Desert nearly the size of Massachusetts, the county is home to a bombing range, chemical-weapons incinerator, […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
The coalbed methane super-prime
Coalbed methane wells are quickly spreading across the West, with the BLM projecting 80,000 to be developed by 2010 (HCN, 9/16/02: Backlash). So the Rocky Mountain Mineral Foundation, a cooperative project of law schools, bar associations and industry associations, is holding a two-day conference in Denver entitled “Regulation and Development of Coalbed Methane.” The program […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
State’s big nuke waste fight takes a hit
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Utahns could kill radioactive dump.” Like Nevada in its fight to stop the nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain (HCN, 8/5/02), Utah has adopted a by-any-means-necessary approach to block storage of high-level nuclear waste within […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Montanans may take back their dams
Initiative would undo some of the damage done by electricity deregulation
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Nuclear waste road accidents don’t faze WIPP
NEW MEXICO August, a drunk driver crashed into a truck in southern New Mexico that was hauling 28 55-gallon drums of nuclear waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in Carlsbad, N.M. (HCN, 4/12/99: Nuclear waste dump opens). Less than two weeks later, the driver of another truck carrying waste to WIPP blacked out, hurtling […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Thumpers hit a speedbump
COLORADO On August 16, seismic “thumper trucks” were poised to explore for oil and gas in the Canyons of the Ancients, a national monument in southwest Colorado, home to several rare lizards and more than 5,000 archeological sites. But four environmental groups sued to stop the 30-ton trucks from rolling across the landscape, and in […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Independent ranchers fight corporate control
Lawsuits seek to eliminate mandatory checkoff payments
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Yes, I’m gonna eat that!
After visiting the Fertile Crescent, where he eats “local” food for the first time, Lebanese-American writer Gary Paul Nabhan returns to the U.S. determined to do the same at his Tucson home. To most of us, that would have meant growing a larger garden and buying a lamb or cow from a neighbor. But Nabhan, […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
The BLM stabs at a tired land
Bush’s push for oil and gas development touches down on the San Juan Basin
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Some see economic upside in loss of farm water
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. CALEXICO, Calif. – Jose Valles may not know it just yet, but he’s on the cusp of what could be a radically different Imperial Valley economy. Valles, a field worker for 14 of his 32 years, is learning English and training to become a […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Backlash
Local governments tackle an in-your-face rush on coalbed methane
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
A NIMBY and proud of it
At a recent hearing on natural gas drilling in my county, a rancher stood before our planning commission and said, “I support President Bush’s policies to make America energy independent, and I don’t want to be a NIMBY, but … ” He then went on to outline the catastrophic impacts gas drilling could have on […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
One Colorado county takes a stand
Note: This is a sidebar to a main story headlined “Backlash.” HOTCHKISS, Colo. – “Not a drop of water runs off of this place,” says Steve Ela, looking out over his 112-acre orchard, where tiny sprinklers mist beneath a canopy of apple trees. The irrigation system that diverts ditch water to soak half the orchard […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Bush’s energy push meets unintended consequences
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As substances go, natural gas doesn’t have much substance. Oh, it’s real enough. Mishandled, it can explode. Properly handled, it can heat homes, power vehicles and generate electricity. But being a gas, it lacks solidity. Unless it is liquefied, you cannot see it, much less grasp it. Natural gas, then, is sort […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
Yucca heads for the courts
NEVADA With the Senate’s 60-39 approval of a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain on July 9, the congressional fight over what to do with the nation’s spent nuclear fuel is finished. President Bush signed the bill into law July 23. But Nevada officials and politicians say that an array of legal and procedural hurdles […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
Who speaks for the farmers?
OREGON Some farmers in the Klamath Basin are interested in selling their land to federal agencies and thereby freeing up water, not only for endangered fish, but also for their neighbors – although you wouldn’t know it from listening to their elected officials. This spring, the Klamath Water Users Association helped kill an amendment to […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
Utah gases up
Major oil and gas development is one step closer to fruition on 2 million acres of public land in northeastern Utah. Geophysical surveying company Veritas DGC Inc. recently submitted a draft environmental assessment, proposing two-dimensional seismic exploration in the Book Cliffs area. Instead of using behemoth thumper trucks, Veritas plans to detonate 7,500 underground explosives […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2002: Land or money?
Land or money?
ELKO, Nev. – A panicked starling flaps under the rafters and the Beastie Boys shout from the overhead loudspeakers, but the tribal gymnasium seems as still and serious as a classroom before a final exam. On the edge of the basketball court, a young woman stands at a folding table, resting her forearms on an […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Big stink over factory farms
UTAH As more large-scale confined animal feeding operations move into the rural West, state and local governments are slowly moving to regulate the industry (HCN, 4/15/02: Raising a stink). But in Utah, a new state law has aborted one county’s attempts to make such operations criminally liable for their impacts on local communities. A bill […]