But on the ground in the West, big companies are hedging
Energy & Industry
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Tapping into energy’s fringe
As companies drill for ‘unconventional’ natural gas, environmental impacts mount
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Westerners slowly adapt to high prices
But what will it take to really make a change?
Posted inDecember 12, 2005: The Final Energy Frontier
Forget idealism
Renewable energy will save consumers money
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Agriculture gets a half-step greener
Nonprofit promotes new eco-label for crops grown with fewer chemicals
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Energy companies plow some profits back into Western ground
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Gold from the Gas Fields.” As he sat in his Houston office on Nov. 10, Raymond Plank, the chairman of Apache Corporation, tracked news reports about the Washington, D.C., hearing, in which members of the U.S. Senate scolded five of his fellow oil-company executives. […]
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Gold from the Gas Fields
As energy companies reap billions from the region’s energy reserves, some Westerners question whether enough of the wealth is staying home
Posted inNovember 28, 2005: Gold from the Gas Fields
Congress loosens organic standards
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Agriculture gets a half-step greener.” Large-scale organic food producers have beaten back an effort to strengthen national organic standards. The Organic Trade Association, which represents 1,600 farmers, distributors and grocers, had feared that stricter standards would hinder […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Doubling density near Durango
After two decades of trying to hold the line against an increase in oil and gas drilling, commissioners in La Plata County recently signed deals allowing two energy companies to double the density of coalbed methane wells near Durango. Now that the companies’ infill applications have been approved by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
Oil drillers get ‘one-stop shopping’ at no extra cost
Western lawmakers exempt energy industry from extra fees
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Forest Service greases the skids for oil and gas
U.S. Forest Service officials say they’re overwhelmed by the recent flood of permit applications from energy companies. On the Dakota Prairie National Grassland alone, drilling permit applications have jumped from 20 to 110 during the past year. To ease the workload, the agency wants to stop doing full-scale environmental assessments on smaller energy projects. The […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
Overseas drill rigs head for the West
Oil and gas drilling permits have tripled during the last five years, and every available rig has been pressed into service. Now, energy companies are looking overseas, particularly to China, for equipment and qualified crews. But as foreign drill rigs and workers arrive to tap Western lands, political red flags are starting to go up. […]
Posted inWotr
Sacred cows in the public’s paradise
With four hours of freeways and winding mountain roads between me and San Francisco, I was finally hiking slow and easy up the first part of Disaster Creek Trail in California’s Carson-Iceberg Wilderness. I’d been waiting all summer for spring to arrive in the Sierra High Country, in a place called Paradise Valley. I’m a […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Boulder gets the gas-drilling blues
Energy companies are drilling holes straight through efforts to preserve open space on Colorado’s Front Range. Boulder County has saved about 76,000 acres from development by buying property and creating conservation easements. However, the county doesn’t always control the mineral rights underneath that land — which leaves the surface property open to drilling. Previous landowners […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Methamphetamine fuels the West’s oil and gas boom
Long the drug of choice for rural down-and-out youth, crank becomes commonplace among drill-rig roughnecks.
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Be a patriot — get your hands dirty
While foraging through my backyard garden the other day for cucumbers, peppers and hot-to-touch chiles, a slogan occurred to me: “Support Our Troops — Plant a Garden.” Gardening was as distant from my life as Afghanistan until I bought a house seven years ago. My newly acquired yard had bluegrass in the middle and a […]
Posted inWotr
Fear in the fields
Farmworker Olivia Tamayo’s fingers are crooked from over 30 years of picking and weeding vegetables in California’s hot sun. Sitting in her home in this cramped farming town of Huron, she talks in low tones about the reality of farmwork for many female migrants. In 1975, Tamayo arrived in California’s Central Valley from Mexico, newly […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
In the orchards, questions about immigration reform
Washington state offers a cautionary tale for would-be reformers in Washington, D.C.
Posted inWotr
A ‘teachable moment’ has arrived
As the personal tragedies and economic ripples flowed from New Orleans last week, a friend called from Eureka in Northern California to alert me that the price of gasoline had risen another 30 cents per gallon. Maybe this is a message that will get through, I thought. I live near Eureka in the tiny town […]
Posted inAugust 22, 2005: A Military Town Fights for its Life
Drilling leases slowed by paper jam
At a Denver gas industry conference Aug. 3, Assistant Secretary of the Interior Rebecca Watson said a “staggering” increase in protests is hobbling gas drilling in the Rocky Mountains. Pre-lease protests — attempts to stop the Bureau of Land Management from auctioning off parcels of land to oil and gas companies — are up 664 […]