Western states’ energy extraction compared to others
Infographic
Posted inDecember 20, 2010: California Dreamin'
State trust lands serve public
What’s equivalent in area to Washington state, lies mostly west of the Mississippi, and raises well over a billion dollars for public education each year? State trust lands. These unique “public” lands were granted by the federal government to every state that joined the Union, starting with Ohio in 1803, in the belief that townships […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2010: Dr. No
Draining the tub
On Oct. 17, history was quietly made: The surface elevation of Lake Mead, a huge reservoir on the Colorado River near Las Vegas, dropped below its record low and continued to fall about a tenth of an inch per day over the following days. Those fractions of inches might seem insignificant, but when projected across […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
Monstertruck alley
Remember the last time a fleet of semis roared past you on the interstate? Now triple the size of the trucks and halve the size of the road, and you have a rough image of a plan to ship 207 loads of oversized mining equipment through Idaho and Montana to the Kearl Oil Sands in […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
The Southern Utes’ empire
A history of lost land … and a big comeback
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Net losses
Four endangered fish species currently live in the mainstem of the Colorado River. Several other endangered native fishes — including the woundfin, desert pupfish and Gila topminnow — used to live there but now survive only in the river’s tributaries or in man-made habitats. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with […]
Posted inJune 21, 2010: Immersed in the Wild
Ranger danger?
National parks seem like places of refuge, far removed from urban crime and violence. But for at least the last decade, law enforcement rangers in the National Park Service have been among the federal law enforcement officers most likely to be injured or killed by assault. In 2009, descriptions of violent incidents in national parks […]
Posted inWotr
Let’s not forget the hidden costs of uranium mining
Here in the West, uranium mining continues its wobbly resurgence. In recent years, it has sputtered through the peaks and valleys of pricing to once again climb in importance and output. The graph-line of this revival seems to correspond with the vicissitudes of our love-hate relationship with fossil fuels. In 2003, a time of cheap […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
A boring diagram
Lake Mead — Las Vegas’ primary water supply — has been drawing down like a leaky tub over the past decade, thanks to prolonged drought in the Colorado River Basin. The reservoir’s now at 43 percent of capacity and about 100 feet below full — just 45 feet above one of two main water intakes. […]
Posted inJune 7, 2010: One Tough Sucker
Limbo land: Brownfields for green energy
Renewable energy projects planned for contaminated lands
Posted inMay 24, 2010: Accidental Wilderness
For wilderness, look to a wasteland
Select DOD and DOE sites in the West
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Grasshoppered!
“A metabolic wildfire”: That’s how entomologist-nature writer Jeffrey Lockwood of the University of Wyoming describes a grasshopper outbreak. At high densities — say 30 per square yard — a swarm can obliterate rangeland vegetation like “a maniac on a riding mower.” And with last year’s bumper crop of grasshoppers and the potential for a warm, […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Balancing act
A look at how Western states are managing the financial crisis
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
Ewe-haul
About 50 years ago, state wildlife officials decided to try to restore bighorn sheep to Wyoming’s Seminoe Mountains. Between 1958 and 1985, they brought in six new batches — 236 total — from the more prolific Whiskey Mountain herd to the northwest. But the Seminoe herd failed to sustain itself, and by last fall, there […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
The incredible journey
No longer flushing, but still flashing, a ceramic toilet fitted with a transmitter signaled its way across the Northwest last fall. Tagged to send its location to nearby cell phone towers, the discarded commode was one of 782 objects donated by 40 Seattle residents in autumn 2009 for Trash Track. This Massachusetts Institute of Technology […]
Posted inFebruary 1, 2010: 'The environment ... is where we live'
The grammar of picture writing
Explaining the “locator symbols” in petroglyphs
Posted inJanuary 11, 2010: Breakdown
Urban oilscape
One of the West’s most car-happy places sprawls across some of its oldest and most productive oilfields. About 28 million barrels are pumped annually from 5,000 wells in the Los Angeles Basin and just offshore, according to the Center for Land Use Interpretation. These photos were drawn from the organization’s recent L.A. exhibit, “Urban Crude.” […]
Posted inDecember 21, 2009: Wind Resistance
Life along the Colorado River
See a slideshow of Broussalian’s images of the Colorado River — and its people. The desert Southwest is unlikely to run out of water. But under the pressures of climate change and drought, population and politics, the Southwest is likely to run out of cheap water. The deal of the century will become last century’s […]