Why should the 19 million acres of wilderness that make up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the potential oil beneath it, and its resident herd of caribou, matter at all to the ski industry? Sure, the refuge in Alaska is wild and beautiful, it’s pristine, it’s a crown jewel of wilderness. We in the ski […]
Energy & Industry
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Bears and bull trout may block mine
A controversial silver and copper mine that would have tunneled under the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area may have just been shafted. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled on March 28 that construction of the Rock Creek Mine on the edge of the northwestern Montana wilderness area would further jeopardize threatened populations of grizzly bear and […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Oil and gas opponents will have to move faster
The Bureau of Land Management is shortening the amount of time that citizens and environmental groups in Wyoming and Utah will have to protest oil and gas lease sales, and is in the process of formulating a new nationwide policy for such protests. In Wyoming, the BLM posts notices of which parcels will be leased […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Getting smarter about energy use
Despite the fact that energy affects every facet of our lives — from the price of fruit to the wars we wage — most Americans give nary a thought to the topic. “People tend not to focus on energy in their lives, workplaces and decisions — they leave it to the experts,” says Howard Geller, […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Colorado River kisses a toxic mess good-bye
A 12 million-ton relic of the Cold War willget hauled away from Moab
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Backbreaking work props up ‘sustainable’ crops
Organic farmers lead the fight against new worker protections
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Blades, birds and bats: Wind energy and wildlife not a cut-and-dried issue
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Winds of Change.” If you think wind energy is a good alternative to fossil fuels, but you also care about wildlife, you’ve probably worried about the possible “lawnmower” effect of spinning wind turbines on birds and bats. At least some of that concern […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Renewable Energy Standards: How do states match up?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Winds of Change.” Arizona — Adopted in 200. Utilities must generate 1.1 percent of electricity from renewable energy by 2007; 60 percent of the 1.1 percent must be from solar. California — Adopted in 2002. 20 percent by 2017 for investor-owned utilities. Colorado […]
Posted inWotr
Home on a very small range
In the years that I zealously rode a horse as a teen, the pasture below our house was a pen for my plump little buckskin mare. Conveniently flat, it doubled as an arena, hard-packed and strewn with makeshift jumps. Other than being a nuisance and forcing me to feed hay more often, the thistle and […]
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
Climate model may help farmers know what to grow
What farmer hasn’t wished for a weather-predicting crystal ball? Now, growers in the Yakima Valley have the next best thing: a high-tech climate model that may benefit the entire West. The climate model is adapted from a West-wide model developed by the Department of Energy, which predicts that, over the next 50 years, Western snowpack […]
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
No room for democracy on California farms
Remember high school history class, and all that jive about Thomas Jefferson and his dream of a democracy based around small family farms? When it comes to California, you can toss that dream right out the window. So writes Richard Walker in The Conquest of Bread, a sweeping new take on agriculture in California. “The […]
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
‘Sound science’ in doubt at Yucca Mountain
E-mails show federal employees circumvented quality assurance procedures
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Rock jocks fight a mining company
Land swap would undo a presidential order for land protection
Posted inWotr
Requiem for Yucca Mountain
Without a miracle of some sort, it is all over. Yucca Mountain, the federal government’s choice for storing nuclear waste from Cold War-bomb production and power plants, will never open. The project that began with a congressional mandate 22 years ago seems perennially stalled, even though $8 billion has already been spent on everything from […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Cheese producers just say ‘no’ to Monsanto
Oregon dairy farmers reaffirmed their intention to keep a bovine growth hormone off their cheese plate, much to the chagrin of the drug’s manufacturer, bioengineering giant Monsanto. On Feb. 28, farmers in the Tillamook County Creamery Association, the second-largest producer of natural chunk cheese in the United States, voted 83 to 43 to uphold a […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Seeds of Deception
Seeds of Deception Jeffrey M. Smith, 280 pages, softcover $17.95, hardcover $27.95. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2003. Despite the reassurances of big biotech companies that genetically modified foods are safe and healthy, Jeffrey Smith says that just isn’t so. He investigates the many things that can go wrong with “Frankenstein foods,” explaining how unintended consequences can […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Colorado couple turns healthy profit from healthy beef
Ten miles north of Durango, Colo., the property lines of the James Ranch are obvious. Red cliffs, cottonwoods and the Animas River frame one side, while to the south, west and north, new homes and a busy state highway push on the fence lines. It’s a common sight in many Western valleys: ranchers stubbornly clinging […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant
In Colorado, a gas company edges in on a radioactive blast site
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Ready… fire… aim!
A decade into a massive energy boom, the West decides it’s time to deal with the impacts on the land, air, water and wildlife
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
State laws — and small staff — muzzle would-be watchdog
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant.” The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, charged with overseeing energy development in the state, is conflicted. The commission’s mission is to facilitate oil and gas production. At the same time, it is supposed to protect the public’s […]