Arizona’s plentiful sunshine will soon supply a small part of the state’s power. By the start of 2001, electricity providers in Arizona will be required to begin using renewable resources such as the sun, wind, biomass generators and landfill gas, for one quarter of 1 percent of total electricity used. By 2007, the state wants […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Mining is forever
After a successful career as a hydrologist and consultant for mining companies in Montana, David Stiller decided to write a book. By looking at one mine in Montana that a prospector in 1898 named after his horse – the “Mike Horse” – Stiller says he hoped to alert people to the danger posed to Westerners […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Change on the Plains
Ranchers on the national grasslands see their power ebb as a new era rushes in
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
A dissident speaks up for the Badlands
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story To get to John Heiser’s home on the high plains of western North Dakota, you turn at the construction yard (“They’d like to pave everything over”), then bear left when you spot the microwave tower (“I think to myself every day how I’d like […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Hanford executive quits in protest
Cleanup mounts to more than $15 billion
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Supreme Court upholds Babbitt’s grazing reforms
Putting livestock on public land is a privilege, not a right
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
He’s worried about weeds
UNCOMMON WESTERNERS Steve Monsen is a stocky, modest, self-contained man. Sixty-three years old, the son and grandson of Utah sheep ranchers, he works as a botanist for an organization that could not sound more unassuming if it tried – the USDA Shrub Lab in Provo, Utah. There, he wears short-sleeved shirts and jeans and cuts […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Save Our Sagebrush
In the Great Basin, fires create a chance for redemption
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Are cows the ultimate weed seeders?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Joy Belski thumbs through the dozens of federal weed-management plans now circulating throughout the West, she almost always finds one thing missing. “The agencies will mention that trucks, hikers, ORVs and roads contribute to the spread of exotic weeds,” she says, “but they […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
A few facts about weeds
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Between 1985 and 1995, the spread of weeds – exotic plant species – increased on public rangelands in the West from 4 million acres to 17 million acres. Unlike native species, exotic weeds have no native insects, fungi or diseases to control their growth […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Look at that big plant!
Some fertilizer sold in Washington state since 1996 contained uranium and other wastes from the production of nuclear reactor fuel; in fact, before the state’s Department of Agriculture issued a stop-sale order on Feb. 17, over 390,000 gallons of the material had been distributed. State health officials found out about the product after a Seattle […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Former uranium town wants its waste back
Town folk say radioactive waste will boost business
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
The Winds of Change
With the White House seeking to more than double the number of power plants, the best hope for a clean energy future lies in local communities
Posted inAugust 28, 2000: The mine that turned the Red River blue
‘Molycorp hasn’t been a good neighbor to us’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Joe Cisneros will tell you proudly that he was the model for the feisty protagonist in John Nichols’ novel The Milagro Beanfield War – and Nichols concurs. Cisneros has been Molycorp’s most belligerent and outspoken critic since a botched 1968 attempt by the company […]
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
Incinerator plans go up in smoke
WYOMING Last April, Wilson, Wyo., resident Mary Mitchell called the Jackson Hole News demanding to know more about plans to burn nuclear waste at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. But Jackson papers had paid no attention to the Department of Energy’s plans to build an incinerator in eastern Idaho, even though the facility […]
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
Reclaiming a golden landscape
MONTANA A court-ordered cleanup plan for the Golden Sunlight Mine in western Montana marks the beginning of a golden era of mine reclamation, say local environmentalists. “For the first time since the West was opened by miners, people have stood up and told the mining industry that they can’t leave a ravaged landscape when a […]
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
How to get right side up again
Instead of propping up corporate agriculture, let’s subsidize small farmers
Posted inMarch 27, 2000: The last wild river
Mine proposal stumbles
CALIFORNIA The Bureau of Land Management might just say “no.” For years, critics have blasted a proposed open-pit gold mine on public land in southeastern California, arguing that the Glamis Imperial Corp. project would destroy both Native American sacred sites and habitat of the threatened desert tortoise (HCN, 8/2/99: Weighing artifacts against gold). After a […]
Posted inMarch 27, 2000: The last wild river
What’s in your organic burrito?
Ever wonder what makes an organically labeled food organic? Soon, you’ll know. The Department of Agriculture recently released its proposed national organic standards for comment on the federal register. The 146-page document includes a list of substances approved and prohibited in organic foods. The agency’s first attempt at setting organic regulations, which allowed genetically engineered […]
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
Neighborly mining negotiations sour
MONTANA Environmental groups and a Montana mining company failed to see eye to eye over a “good neighbor” agreement after eight months of talking, and negotiations have stopped. Stillwater Mining Co. and three citizens’ groups agreed that the platinum and palladium mine, located on public and private lands in the Beartooth Mountains, would be around […]