Revised BLM regulations punch a hole in the 1872 Mining Law
Energy & Industry
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Landowners could get gas relief
For years, landowners in Colorado have complained that the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, charged with regulating methane gas development, is biased towards industry (HCN, 9/25/00: Colliding forces: Has Colorado’s oil and gas industry met its match?). Now, four bills currently in the state Legislature promise to give landowners more rights. Greg Walcher, the head […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Power on the loose
Deregulation sparks an energy revolution
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Backyard power struggle
Locals hope new energy sources will save their view
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Rearranging the grid
A rural electric co-op becomes a progressive force
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Wind power spins into the energy mainstream
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to an essay, “Rearranging the grid.” While most of the power-strapped West looks toward fossil fuels for relief, wind power has quietly swept onto the energy playing field as a viable alternative. Next month, on the Oregon-Washington border, construction will begin […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Lifting the veil of secrecy
Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West, by Len Ackland, The University of New Mexico press. Hardback: $34.95. 308 pages. Most people know that the Cold War spawned a number of nuclear bomb manufacturing facilities in the spacious American West – places like Hanford in eastern Washington state and Rocky Flats just […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Hot Property: A former nuclear bomb factory gets caught in suburban turf wars
ROCKY FLATS, Colo. – When Charlie McKay’s uncle, Marcus Church, was forced to sell 1,250 acres of ranchland to the U.S. government for a top-secret military facility, the deal was sweetened only by the promise of a development boom. The year was 1951, and Denver, which sat 17 miles away, had a population of a […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Los Alamos piles on more waste
NEW MEXICO With the stockpile of radioactive waste set to expand at Los Alamos National Laboratory, local watchdog groups fear that temporary storage might turn out to be forever. Fifteen years ago, Congress made the Department of Energy responsible for taking low-level radioactive waste from America’s private industries and government programs. But DOE has been […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Mine all dressed up with nowhere to go
ARIZONA The future of a controversial mine in southern Arizona now may be at the mercy of the copper market. The proposed Carlota copper mine, for four years a target of local environmental groups because of its threat to nearby Pinto Creek (HCN, 3/17/97), now has all the permits it needs to open, but its […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Is a gold mine’s discharge illegal?
COLORADO The Cripple Creek & Victor Mine near Victor can claim two superlatives: It is Colorado’s largest open-pit gold mine, and, according to the EPA, it’s also the state’s biggest chemical polluter of water. Because Colorado has failed to rein in the mine, say two national environmental groups, they are threatening to sue the mine […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Atomic farmgirl
It was a headline in The Spokesman-Review that informed my family that both the bomb at Alamogordo and the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki contained plutonium produced at Hanford. That’s how everybody – everybody in the whole world and everybody in our neighborhood – found out what was going on down there: from the […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Agency gets rebuked
Since the late 1980s, scientists have known that more than 100 federal nuclear sites, over half of which lie in the West, will remain toxic forever. The problem is how to manage these former bomb sites for thousands of years. Though the Department of Energy commissioned a National Academy of Sciences study over two years […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Bovine weedeaters
Leigh Frederickson, a natural resources professor at the University of Missouri, has been testing whether cattle can hold down the spread of noxious weeds, particularly white top. Last summer, the 14,186-acre Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado worked with five neighboring ranchers, who rented pasture with mixed results. “Depending on the moisture and the […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Troubled harvest
Washington’s fruit industry is a hotbed of federal immigration policy gone wrong
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Cure or curse?
As Chronic Wasting Disease appears again, questions arise about the velvet antler trade
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
Some Puget Sounders bet on the farm
In western Washington, two counties have begun a program called FarmLink to save family farms. FarmLink connects prospective farmers with current farmers in King and Snohomish counties who would like to sell all or part of their lands. It also provides workshops on marketing and other subjects for both would-be and current farmers. Over the […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
Cattle grazing hurts
Cattle grazing hurts arid ecosystems in North America, says the Western North American Naturalist journal in a recent review of research. Allison Jones of the Wild Utah Project says grazing is a significant source of soil erosion. The WNAN journal Web site is at www.lib.byu.edu/~nms/. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine […]
Posted inNovember 20, 2000: Water pressure
From nuclear fuel to nature trails
Oregon wants to turn an ex-nuclear power plant into a state park
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
Greens are still seeing red
WYOMING After 100 years of failed attempts to protect southwest Wyoming’s Red Desert, environmentalists say it’s do or die. Oil and gas companies plan to sink 10,000 to 15,000 wells by 2010, and a coalition of conservation groups, ranchers and outfitters doesn’t think the Bureau of Land Management’s plan will protect the area. Mac Blewer […]