Ed Marston’s tribute to pioneering rancher Doc Hatfield was fitting; Hatfield had a major hand in promoting responsible use of Western rangelands. He helped start a movement of responsible ranchers operating in all corners of the West (HCN, 4/15/12, “Goodbye, Doc”). The less-responsible ranchers are still out there, too, and, from what I see here […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inMay 28, 2012: The Gila Bend Photon Club
California clean energy rules may impede imports from rest of West
When a group of Pacific Northwestern utilities teamed up to build a $580 million pair of wind farms in the Columbia Gorge a few years ago, they planned to help pay for the projects by selling excess generation and renewable energy credits to a California utility. Selling some or all of a project’s power to […]
Posted inMay 28, 2012: The Gila Bend Photon Club
Can solar produce long-lasting jobs?
Climbing to the top of the observation tower above the Agua Caliente Solar Project takes some nerve. Wind gusts up to 35 miles per hour challenge white-knuckle grips on the railing; the grated steel landings shudder underfoot. At three stories, the tower is just high enough to set off alarms in the acrophobic brain. It […]
Posted inMay 28, 2012: The Gila Bend Photon Club
Choosing between solar and soil in California
California farmer Michael Robinson’s 120 acres in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta might seem like the perfect site for a 20-megawatt solar array to power thousands of homes. It’s near transmission lines and lacks the endangered tortoises, long waits for federal permits and other obstacles that have tripped up larger solar projects in the Mojave […]
Posted inGoat
New podcast: There’s (still) gold in them thar hills!
Soaring gold prices are driving a new gold rush, among mining behemoths and small-time prospectors. West of 100 is a monthly podcast of compelling stories and ideas. Recent episodes have explored the lost rivers of Western cities, and what we lose when man-made noise overtakes the natural hum of the wild. New episodes come out […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Recycling diesel emissions for farm fertilizer?
The summer of 2007 was one of the driest and hottest on record in Montana. Fields withered along the state’s arid Hi-Line. But in the small, north-central town of Rudyard, one emerald-green cornfield stood out amid the brown. The field was a test plot grown with a technology that only a fed-up farmer could have […]
Posted inGoat
It’s the pits
If you’ve followed any government effort to rein in the impacts of a polluting industry over the last several years, especially in the run-up to this year’s Presidential election, then you’re probably familiar with the beaten-to-death description of all new regulations as “job killers.” (That’s right people! This isn’t about public health or protecting private […]
Posted inArticles
There’s (still) gold in them thar hills
In this episode of West of 100, High Country News contributing editor Jonathan Thompson visits a gold mine and ponders the illusory nature of gold prices, and Hadley Robinson reports from the Klamath River, once a popular destination for small-time gold prospectors that’s now at the center of the controversy over California’s ban on suction-dredge […]
Posted inMay 14, 2012: The sediment dumps of L.A.
Retirees join environmentalists in fighting Arizona copper mine
Nestled as it is amid saguaro-studded hills, under a sky crisp blue by day and starry by night, you’d never guess Queen Valley, Ariz., is only 40 miles east of Phoenix. Its cozy homes surround a lush golf course, about four miles from a swath of state land perfect for four-wheeling, hunting and bird-watching. About […]
Posted inGoat
From gust to gale
The Energy Integrity Project is one of a growing number of “grass-roots” groups around the country that aggressively lobby against regional wind development projects and renewable energy policies. And while most are small, NIMBY-type outfits, documents recently obtained by the Checks & Balances Project — a government and industry watchdog organization — suggest that these […]
Posted inWotr
The Pawnee Buttes oversee a changing landscape
Updated 05/11/2012, 4:07 p.m. You don’t go to Pawnee Buttes in northeastern Colorado by chance. Lonely and isolated, they stand several hundred feet above the rolling and sometimes choppy prairie. They’re nearly an hour’s drive away from an interstate highway, either I-80 or I-76, and it’s nearly that far to the nearest gas station. It’s […]
Posted inGoat
Frack fricasee
If you want evidence that it’s an election year, look no further than this press release from the Department of the Interior. It announces the department’s first-ever regulations (pdf) for certain federal lands covering several aspects of that ever controversial practice, hydraulic fracturing, wherein millions of gallons of water, plus measures of sand and chemicals, […]
Posted inRange
Little grousing on the prairie
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House I’m embarrassed to say that, in the decade I’ve lived on the Colorado Front Range, I’d never been to the Pawnee National Grasslands; that is, until last week. With mountains in my rear-view, I drove east from Fort Collins. Before long, I crossed the border into Weld County (called […]
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Pragmatism is doomed
Setting a target for reducing fossil-fuel dependence without micromanaging how it is met makes sense, though I would like to see energy producers and consumers receive credit for conservation (HCN, 4/16/12, “Solar + wind + nuclear + natural gas = clean energy?”). Nevertheless, passage of Sen. Bingaman’s bill would represent progress, and I would hate […]
Posted inGoat
Haste makes waste
Following a tip from HCN contributing editor, Craig Childs, I purged 500 words for this blog in 30 minutes, a stick-‘em-up way of pilfering my brain for production and creativity. I scored a good foundation, but since I’m still an apprentice, the rest was babble. The guiding rule for now is that haste makes waste. […]
Posted inApril 16, 2012: The Other Bakken Boom
The Other Bakken Boom: America’s biggest oil rush brings tribal conflict
Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, a lilting swath of prairie in western North Dakota, was once a quiet place. Though thrice the area of Los Angeles, it had only 5,000 residents. Even New Town, a more populous district east of a reservoir called Lake Sakakawea, looked sparse and ephemeral. There was a granary, a fire station, […]
Posted inGoat
Got the gold bug? Tour a mine.
All of us know at least one person who, as a hedge against imminent financial collapse, is stockpiling gold (not to mention Dinty Moore stew and guns). The idea is to have some kind of solid form of currency when the dollar and Euro go up in smoke, whether brought on by Obama, big banks […]
Posted inApril 16, 2012: The Other Bakken Boom
A lament for open range
Thanks to Jonathan Thompson for pointing out that there is more nastiness involved in the drilling and production of natural gas than fracking (HCN, 3/19/12, “A fresh focus on frack attacks”). Once-open Western rangelands have been transformed into industrial slums, complete with contaminated water and air. Habitats have been destroyed and wildlife populations displaced or […]
