One of the West’s great old-school monopolies and its multi-pronged attack on wind and solar.
Idaho
Posted inMay 13, 2013: Right-wing Migration
How right-wing emigrants conquered North Idaho
If anyone in Kootenai County could have predicted the Democrats’ downfall, it was Dan English. He had spent most of his life in the Idaho Panhandle and monitored more than 100 local elections in his 15 years as county clerk. The first ballots he counted, in 1996, revealed tight contests between Republicans and Democrats, but […]
Posted inMay 13, 2013: Right-wing Migration
Other voices: the debate on wolf hunting from both sides
“Overall, they’re making it too easy to kill wolves. (It’s) persecution of wolves on a huge level. … I think we’re on the road to re-listing wolves in the Rocky Mountains.” — Marc Cooke, president of Wolves of the Rockies “The hunting has put such intense pressure on the packs, they’re dispersing, they’re disrupted; the […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
A new collaboration has Idaho ranchers and the BLM fighting fire together
On a hot day in August 2011, lightning sparked a fire in the rocky bluffs outside Glenns Ferry, Idaho. With the Bureau of Land Management’s fire crews tied up on the other 16 or so fires burning in the area, a few local ranchers, some of whom had grazing allotments on the land, rushed in […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
The Forest Service battles placer mining with an obscure law
On a clear day last October in northern Idaho, Forest Service geologist Clint Hughes panned for gold on the North Fork Clearwater River. The area attracted gold prospectors in the 1860s, but these days, the river, which flows through a wild stretch of country near the Montana border, is popular with campers and anglers. Hughes […]
Posted inApril 29, 2013: A New Forest Paradigm
Trappers catch a lot more than wolves
As the feds handed management of gray wolves to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming over the last few years, reactions were mixed. Conservationists worried that wolf numbers would plummet, while hunters and trappers were thrilled they’d get to legally pursue the predators. All three states have hunting seasons now. Idaho started allowing wolf trapping last year; […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
How the amount of fish you eat impacts water quality
Idaho plans to conduct a $300,000 study to learn how much fish its residents eat from state waters. The amount consumed helps determine regulatory limits for pollutant levels in rivers and lakes. Most Western states use the EPA’s default fish-consumption rate, a cracker-sized 17.5 grams per day, to set human health standards for dozens of […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Economy, distrust complicate allocation of tribal settlement money
When the Obama administration announced in April that it would pay 41 tribes some $1 billion to settle a lawsuit over federal mismanagement of trust funds, many saw it as a sort of stimulus package for Indian Country — a chance to invest in long-term development and infrastructure, such as schools, clinics and roads. “The […]
Posted inMarch 5, 2012: The Zombies of Teton County
Unfinished zombie housing developments haunt the rural West
Matt Hail grew up in sweltering metropolitan Phoenix and spent 11 years selling women’s clothing, mostly wholesaling to department stores on the West Coast and across the Southwest. The job was boring, but he enjoyed vacationing at ski resorts, including Colorado’s Vail and Breckenridge. Like many other people, he imagined changing his life by moving […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2011: Obama and the West
County kickbacks
Though Westerners tend to idealize frontier independence, rural county governments often rely on Uncle Sam. Federal payment programs meant to compensate counties for lost cash from tax-exempt public lands distributed about $900 million nationwide in 2009. One of these programs — the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS) — was barely renewed in […]
Posted inWotr
Wolves: The debate is seldom rational
The wolf pot continues to boil in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. Now, another state has been added to the stew. In Oregon, environmentalists are protesting the piecemeal removal of wolves from the Endangered Species list, hunters want less competition from wolves, and ranchers complain that wolves are killing their livestock. In eastern Oregon, where there […]
Posted inWotr
Call me a local and forget about my grandpappy
I live in Lemhi County, Idaho, but nobody else in my family ever did, and recently, that’s become a problem. I love the boiled-down democracy of city council meetings, the frank discussions of local school boards, the drama of planning and zoning hearings – and no, I’m not kidding. I find local politics fascinating, and […]
Posted inWotr
Everybody wants to move to my town
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance was hardly telling Boiseans anything new last summer when it ranked the city fourth among the nation’s 10 best places to live, work and play. Over the last few years, we’ve gotten pretty used to being at or near the top of such lists: Forbes, Money, National Geographic Adventure, Inc.com, MSN BestLife, […]
Posted inWotr
A town’s downtown is the new (old) way to live
The sun rises over the mountains and floods my room with light. I lie in bed and listen to the cooing of conspiring pigeons on the roof. I’ve lately moved from Cody, Wyo., to Salmon, Idaho. Cody, like other towns surrounding Yellowstone National Park, has become an expensive place to live, especially for a freelance […]
Posted inMay 12, 2008: Boom! Boom!
Small-town struggle in a big land
The Enders Hotel, winner of the 2007 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, chronicles a childhood and coming of age in Soda Springs, Idaho, amid the beauty of the high desert and the rampant alcoholism of a Western “company”town. After stints elsewhere in Idaho and in Washington, young Brandon Schrand, his mother, and stepfather settle in […]
Posted inJune 25, 2007: Predator hunters for the environment
Worth the work
NAME: Jeremias Pink AGE: 24 VOCATION: Graphic designer, nonprofit organizer, bicycle mechanic HOME BASE: Pocatello, Idaho KNOWN FOR: Giving away bicycles HE’S READING: Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing by anthropologist Michael Taussig FAVORITE FOOD: “I eat what I’m told.” HE SAYS: “Whether or not we’re accomplishing our mission […]
Posted inJune 25, 2007: Predator hunters for the environment
Heard Around the West
IDAHO What you surely don’t need when you show up for work is two men walking into your office carrying a goat. Then one says cheerily: “Congratulations, you’ve been goated!” True, the goat is a mini-breed, no bigger than a dog, but it does poop (one goat-handler totes a handy pooper-scooper) and it is, after […]
Posted inMay 14, 2007: Two Views of the Verde
Cow power
Entrepreneurs hope to cash in on Idaho dairy country’s stinky problem
Posted inApril 30, 2007: Rural Education 2.0
Rural Education 2.0
SPRINGFIELD, COLO. — The man in the Sodbuster Bar walks with a slight limp, the result of old injury. “I was operating a seismograph rig when it went off a hillside outside Meteetsee, Wyo.,” he said. “It fell 382 feet with me inside. I wasn’t supposed to make it, but I did. I eventually got […]