NOTE this list is a sidebar to the main story — “Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields.” — At least 89 people died on the job in the Interior West’s oil and gas industry from 2000 to 2006, in a variety of accidents, including 90-foot falls, massive explosions, poison gas inhalations and crushings […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inMarch 19, 2007: The Silence of the Bees
The Silence of the Bees
The perilous existence of a migratory beekeeper amid a great bee die-off
Posted inWotr
I’ve got the power
It isn’t like one of those holiday scenes with a flurry of snow swirling, caught inside a vigorously shaken globe of winter wonder. It’s only a glass cylinder about the size of a three-pound coffee can, attached to my telephone post. A silver disc spins inside it. Vaguely resembling a CD player, it’s known in […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 2007: One nation, under fire
Powered by pond scum
Algae may prove a promising source of biofuel
Posted inFebruary 5, 2007: The Efficiency Paradox
Energy illusions
A new report seems to show that more land is off-limits to energy exploration, but appearances can be deceiving
Posted inFebruary 5, 2007: The Efficiency Paradox
The West’s public lands are open for business
The 2003 EPCA report considered five Western regions. The 2006 report looked at 11, including Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and southern Florida. The difference in scope skews comparison of the reports, especially considering that ANWR’s 19 million acres are (still) off-limits to drilling. But a look at the five Western regions included in both […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Man Camp
Energy companies turn to portable dormitories during housing crunch
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Fill ‘er up with moonshine
Name Chris Myles Age 51 Vocation A chronic volunteer, he’s studying to become a paramedic and makes homemade classic guitars. Known for Attempting to distill homebrewed ethanol On what brought him to Silverton “The blue skies here are like nothing I’d ever seen before. You get clear days in the Midwest but there is always […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Shear Pleasure
As the eighth red-headed slut slid down my throat, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. I was merely trying to keep up with my new friends, a group of traveling sheepshearers from New Zealand. But they kept buying round after round at the Sawmill Saloon in Darby, Mont. “Shearing’s a hobby,” […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2006: Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Confessions of a Methane Floozy
Faustian bargains in the gas fields of New Mexico’s San Juan Basin
Posted inDecember 11, 2006: Old but Faithful
Have knives and hooks, will travel
Name The Mobile Matanza Hometown Taos, New Mexico Measurements 36 feet long by 13 feet, 6 inches tall Items on her wish list Gloves, hook-eye sharpener, meat band saw blades, meat grinder plates, three-way oilstone, platters, long butchering aprons, butchering supplies and knives, brushes and scrapers. She’s sleek, full-figured and gleaming white, though not […]
Posted inNovember 27, 2006: The West: A New Center of Power
Destruction and discovery walk hand in hand
Energy boom fuels archaeology
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Spinning coal into gasoline
Questions hang over promise of clean diesel and energy independence
Posted inWotr
We bought an SUV, and we’re proud of it
To the horror of our environmentally conscious friends, my husband and I just bought a big honkin’ SUV. After spending 20 years with our pickup truck, which was working on 250,000 miles and its third rear-end gear, we decided it was time. Our in-town car is 10 years old, with great ground clearance and room […]
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
Wastin’ away in New Mexico
European-based company breaks ground on uranium enrichment facility
Posted inOctober 16, 2006: A River Once More
When a gas pipeline blows, you get out fast
My family and I live in Clark, Wyo., on the Montana-Wyoming border. I used to tell people that I lived on the edge of Yellowstone country. Nowadays, though, I admit that I live in an industrial zone — the kind of place where things can get dangerous and sometimes go very wrong. Early in the […]
Posted inWotr
When a gas pipeline blows, you get out fast
My family and I live in Clark, Wyo., on the Montana-Wyoming border, and though I used to tell people that I live on the edge of Yellowstone country, I now admit that I’m in an industrial zone, where things can get dangerous and go very wrong. Early in the evening of Aug. 11, a neighbor […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t forget the cup holders
We are not addicted to oil. We are addicted to moving around and exploring what’s out there, be it the top of the mountain or the climbing wall in the new recreation center on the edge of town. The words of that explorer of the future, Captain Kirk, stay with us because he fed our […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
It’s shady in the Interior
The U.S. Interior Department’s top watchdog, Inspector General Earl Devaney, blasted the department before Congress on Sept. 13 for waiving billions of dollars in federal royalty payments from oil and gas companies. He’s also disgusted by the department’s refusal to address conflict-of-interest issues, specifically those including J. Steven Griles, an oil and gas lobbyist-turned deputy […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Half a Roan for gas, and half for everyone else
The BLM’s management plan for western Colorado’s Roan Plateau, released in Sept. 7, manages to upset everyone. The plan opens the plateau’s gas reserves to energy companies, irking environmentalists, but limits surface development to only half of the 34,758 acres on top of the plateau. The plateau, known for its wildlife and scenery, is believed […]