We can argue about who owns the water, yet ultimately the West has a long legal history and an exact answer: We call them water rights for a reason (“What the hay?” HCN, 4/28/14). The owner of those rights – that personal property – should ultimately have the ability to sell the property to the […]
Letter to the editor
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Ordinary heroes
It was refreshing to read the article “Mind Over Mountain” (HCN, 4/14/14). As one who lives with a spinal cord injury, at first I thought, “Oh no, not another hero story.” There are heroes, and Jon Arnow may be one, but there are thousands who live with similar injuries and who “care about the West” […]
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Paying for risk-takers
When I was a kid in the 1950s, my dad expressed disdain for people so poor they’d build on riverbanks prone to flooding (“The stages of disaster,” HCN, 4/28/14). High ground was the motto for his dream home, perched on the stable bluffs of the Minnesota River. In 1978, I arrived in Tucson, Arizona, a […]
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Respect your rescuers
Thankfully, “How to get search-and-rescued,” Shaina Maytum’s travel horror story (HCN, 4/14/14), was short. Fixated on what the volunteer rescuers were wearing (Postal Service uniform, jeans, Keds), she neglected to admit what’s important: She’s lucky to be alive. Any sense of personal responsibility was missing, along with any gratitude for the search-and-rescue folks who drop […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Carbon Cost Consistency
Thank you for your nuanced reporting in “Ripple Effect” and “Betting on Coal” (HCN, 3/17/14). We particularly enjoyed Emily Guerin’s account of Shonto Energy and the young minds “bucking the brain drain.” The interviews reminded us of efforts in West Virginia to get the competence and confidence of the people out from underneath King Coal. […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Frosty recesses
I must admit that after glancing at “Touring the frosties of the Lost Sierra” (HCN, 4/14/14), I was tempted to pass over it and move on to a weightier issue that would have more resonance with an under-employed conservation biologist. But because it involved the Sierra, not to mention frosties, it latched onto something in […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Pinocchios on Whitney
My April 14 issue arrived in today’s mail, and as usual I started reading pretty much right away. I was soon into the Horror Stories, where I realized that Colin Weatherby’s tall tale (“The Boy Scouts didn’t prepare us for this”) could have used some fact-checking. The peak named Mount Whitney is not “the highest in the […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Inconclusive conclusions
Sierra Crane-Murdoch’s thoughtful article on the legacy of the tragic cancer deaths of young children in Fallon, Nev., brought to mind the cancer clusters amid the pesticide-saturated lands in California’s Central Valley (HCN, 3/3/14). The investigations result in the same inconclusive and deeply unsatisfying official conclusions. Suspicions linger for years that information has been withheld, […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Shilling for Big Oil?
In 1993, the mayor of Cordova, Alaska, committed suicide. In his final note, he mentioned Exxon. This tragedy represents the lasting shocks that continue to ripple through many communities still affected by the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill 25 years later. While Krista Langlois’ story was focused on the ecological aspects of the […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
The high price of cheap housing and falt-screen TVs
The sad and infuriating article “Fallon’s Deadly Legacy” (HCN, 3/3/14) is staying with me; I did not simply read it and move on to the next interesting article. Of course, there is no way to fully overcome the pain of the death of a child, no words that can be truly comforting. However, those affected […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
A solution to our biological crisis
I was pleased to see the sobering article by Emily Guerin, “Crisis biology,” regarding the fungal diseases now wiping out the world’s amphibians and bats (HCN, 2/17/14). Here in California, we import some 2 million American bullfrogs for human consumption, sold mostly in the state’s many “Chinatown” live-animal food markets. The majority of the market […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
Wild subversion
I enjoyed your coverage of wilderness therapy (“Wilderness therapy redefines itself,” HCN, 2/3/14). Krista Langlois’ sympathetic yet honest reporting presents the practice of wilderness therapy in an accurate and generous light. I do wish, however, that Langlois was more critical of our culture’s underlying assumptions – to which wilderness therapy is a necessary corrective. For […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
Win-win win
It’s probably proper for me to mention that I have worked for the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, and have been a Sierra Club member in the Southwest or Northwest for much of my adult life. In the context of the Feb. 17 HCN issue featuring collaborative […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Not the Hanford I knew
I worked at Hanford for a few years in the late ’50s and early ’60s (“The Hanford Whistleblowers,” HCN, 2/3/14). Some days, as we traveled to the reactor areas, you could see Nike missiles on the ridge across the Columbia River. The missiles were there to protect the site from air attack. We would have […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Cows are not a ‘tool’
When I read “The Odd Couple,” I saw my career flash before my eyes (HCN, 2/17/14). From 1984 to 2006, I was the hydrologist on the Beaverhead National Forest, and for most of that time, my fellow “ologists” and I were involved with the grazing issue. Occasionally, we would get the right combination of permittee, […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
My time on the tank farms
In the early ’70s, I landed a job with ARCO, a contractor at the time overseeing tank farms (“The Hanford Whistleblowers,” HCN, 2/3/14). Working at the nukes was the best paying job around and it was what our dads did. Growing up in Richland, we walked our dads to the bus stop, and watched them […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Counterpoint: Brave New L.A.
In his essay, “Brave New L.A.,” Jon Christensen cites what he considers two pivotal and progressive moments in Los Angeles’ quest for sustainability: the July rise of former Los Angeles City Council Member Eric Garcetti to the mayor’s office and the November centenary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct (HCN, 1/20/14). Both occasions can equally be […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
One man’s sustainable city is another’s environmental scourge
Usually, the lies we tell ourselves are subconscious and hard to describe. That’s why I found two items in HCN‘s recent “urban sustainability” issue so maddening (1/20/14). In “The Vegas Paradox,” Jonathan Thompson informs us that southern Nevada’s official goals would have developers building huge numbers of new “Water Smart” homes by 2035 to achieve […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 2014: The Gila $olution
Water Economics
I found your article on Las Vegas water consumption interesting and well-written (“The Vegas Paradox,” HCN, 1/20/14). Clearly, the water department’s water rates are not sufficient to incentivize conservation. Although it employs a four-tier rate system, its rates are less than half of Denver’s, which also uses Colorado River water. You would think that since Nevada […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
Public-land users and abusers
I own property that borders several thousand acres of national forest, and with my neighbors control the area’s access road (“Public land, locked up,” HCN, 12/9/13). These public lands are used for grazing and for recreation. We allow public access, but are also aware that the public is basically clueless when it comes to land […]