COLORADO Elk ranchers and lawmakers are worried sick about chronic wasting disease. The fatal brain malady has occurred at low levels in wild populations of elk and deer in northeastern Colorado for three decades, but is now spreading in herds of domestic elk that live in close contact with one another (HCN, 11/5/01: Wasting disease […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inFebruary 4, 2002: Last dance for the sage grouse?
Yucca Mountain debate goes nuclear
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Atoms have an irresistible inclination to combine. Good thing, too. If, for instance, two atoms of hydrogen did not regularly combine with one of oxygen, water would not exist, and we would not be having this conversation. As with physics, so with politics, including the politics of atomic energy, which reared its […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
GAO drops a bomb on Yucca Mountain
NEVADA With Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham expected to make a recommendation to President Bush sometime this winter about the Yucca Mountain project, a General Accounting Office audit has raised serious questions about the energy department’s investigation into the proposed nuclear waste dump site. The report, which was leaked to the press on Nov. 30, notes […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
National grasslands up for review
The grasslands of the Northern Plains – primarily under U.S. Forest Service jurisdiction – are home to abundant wildlife, from deer and elk to endangered swift foxes, mountain plovers and ferruginous hawks. But they are also the site of promising oil and gas deposits. With the release of the final environmental impact statement for the […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Gold may bury tribe’s path to its past
Bush administration revives mine project in Southern California
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Rocky Mountain Front saved again – but…
MONTANA In 1997, Forest Service Supervisor Gloria Flora banned oil and gas exploration in Lewis and Clark National Forest for up to 15 years. She cited overwhelming citizen opposition to drilling on the Rocky Mountain Front, and said that exploration would harm the public’s psychological and spiritual connection with the land (HCN, 10/13/97: Forest Service […]
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Critical mass
Radiation workers in Ottawa, Ill., “downwinders” in Utah, unsuspecting veterans of the Gulf War – these are among the populations profiled in Learning to Glow: A Nuclear Reader. In the words of editor John Bradley, the anthology offers a glimpse into stories that “have been largely ignored, dismissed or suppressed.” Certain sections will be familiar […]
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
A refreshing view
If there’s anything everyone can agree on about grazing in the West, it’s that livestock’s influence on the land has been ubiquitous. Biologists Carl and Jane Bock have spent much of their lives studying the ecology of one of the few exceptions, an 8,000-acre short-grass prairie in southern Arizona. In their thoughtful new book, The […]
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Closing the wounds
A plucky group of New Mexico activists pushes mining reclamation into the 21st century
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
Reclamation’s mixed bag
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Take a chocolate chip cookie and extract most of the chips and maybe a few nuts, as carefully as you can. Then reassemble the cookie without its “ore” and see what you have. That gives you some idea of the challenge mine owners face […]
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
The fractured states of mining reclamation
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Jim Kuipers started accumulating information for his guide to Hardrock Reclamation Bonding Practices in the Western United States, he found a regulatory landscape as diverse as the region itself. Though every state in the West requires mining companies to plan ahead for reclamation […]
Posted inDecember 3, 2001: Closing the wounds
‘You can’t say no to mining’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. John D. Leshy, who served as the Department of Interior’s top attorney during the Clinton administration, played a key role in the attempt to reform federal mining regulations. On Oct. 25, the Bush administration announced that many of those reforms will be abandoned (HCN, […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Cows to heat homes
OREGON This winter, manure from 400 Holstein cows will begin generating enough electricity to power 65 homes in the Willamette Valley. The manure will be stored above ground in “digester” tanks where, in heated, airtight conditions, bacteria produce gas in a few weeks. The methane is siphoned off to fuel generators that convert the gas […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Mining reform gets the shaft
When then-secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt shepherded a new set of hard-rock mining regulations into law on Jan. 20, mining critics and reformers hoped the new rules would usher in an era of more environmentally responsible mining. But President Bush’s inauguration brought a new cast of characters into the Interior Department. Faced with three […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
We are the Oil Tribe
I’ve been visiting drilling rigs lately. For an environmentalist, it’s an education. Rugged tattooed men, macho diesel pickups and in-your-face bumper stickers: EARTH FIRST! WE’LL DRILL THE OTHER PLANETS LATER. In a country with 210 million automobiles, only 250 rigs search for oil in America. That seems a small number until you realize that the […]
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Global market squeezes sheep ranchers
Foreign competition, low prices drive some ranchers out
Posted inNovember 19, 2001: Bringing back the bosque
Nuclear storage site splinters Goshutes
Pressure from inside and outside could derail waste plan
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Wyoming’s powder keg
Coalbed methane splinters the Powder River Basin
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Wasting disease spreads in Colorado
Game farm shipped 400 exposed elk to 15 states
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Patricia Clark, Wyoming rancher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Patricia Clark, Wyoming rancher: “We’ve had this place in the family for 105 years, and I’m looking to keep this in the family for another 105 years, and I want to keep it as pristine as I can. Once the damage is done, it’s […]