Letter to the editor

Great story on accessory dwelling units, or ADUs (“Casitas against displacement,” August 2021). You covered different approaches and dug into the up- and downsides. Not saying that’s unusual for HCN, but just wanted to pass on my compliments. Jim Hight Buena Vista, Colorado This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the […]

I was pleased to see “Derailed,” the piece on the Yamhelas Trail project (July 2021). Leah Sottile did a very nice job on the whole sad, sordid mess. It is mind-boggling how such a positive project, popular (except for a select few), could get derailed (pun intended) by said select few. What is all the […]

Anna V. Smith’s report on the Klamath River fish kill in the July edition (“Ongoing fish kill on the Klamath River is an ‘absolute worst-case scenario,’” July 2021) mentions the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, which failed to pass Congress. The report failed to note that, if it had become law, it would have locked in […]

Before reading Maggie Doherty’s review (“The making of our greater selves,” September 2021), I had just been listening to a podcast called Telling Our Twisted Histories. The show, hosted by Kaniehtiio Horn (Mohawk), seeks to “decolonize our minds” by setting the record straight about Indigenous history, culture and thought. I haven’t read Douglas Chadwick’s Four […]

Thank you for vindicating my suspicions that deer read the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (“Rewilding is a two-way street,” July 29, 2021). Will re-up my subscription. Wendy WolfsonIrvine, Colorado This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Rewilding is a two-way street.

Killing the land, pumping the aquifers dry, disturbing the entire ecosystem … for what?  Maybe 25 years before it is abandoned because there is nothing left!?  This was the most depressing and disturbing article (“Sucked Dry,” August 2021); it was all I could do to finish it. We will end up destroying ourselves, guaranteeing we will […]

Thank you for the August article about the mega-dairy coming to Arizona and its impact on our water supply. This installation is representative of the larger problem of corporate agricultural interests exporting our resources. The political powers are reluctant to do anything about it because the industry promises jobs and revenues. It can’t go on […]

“Sucked Dry” provides an important and powerful look at the mega-dairy industry. The repeated disregard by Riverview LLP for people, water and climate is telling. The company is destroying water supplies across the states it operates in, leaving thousands of people with dry wells. The carbon and methane emissions from these mega-dairies is, arguably, immoral, […]

HCN’s writers frequently pound on “mega corporations,” perhaps because its audience, over time, has self-selected to people who like that sort of thing. The concerns about water use are legitimate, but corporate farms do not emit, overall, more pollution than the aggregate of family farms. They may produce more waste in fewer locations, but smaller farms, […]

Sadly, removal of Washington’s Gorge Dam will not slow, let alone reverse, the declining native salmon populations that once thrived in the magnificent 160-plus-mile Skagit-Cascade-Sauk-Suiattle Wild and Scenic River System (“Reassessing the dams,” August 2021). It’s true that “the licensing process has triggered different conversations on the Skagit’s future.” Unfortunately, the author focused on a tiny, […]

Thank you to Debbie Weingarten and Tony Davis for their really excellent article, “Sucked Dry” (August 2021), about Riverview LLP’s mega-dairy expansion into southeast Arizona. It’s one of the best pieces of investigative journalism I have read in High Country News in some time. The article provides a clear example of several key issues the […]

Tony Davis and Debbie Weingarten’s article, “Sucked Dry,” is superb reporting. I can’t thank you enough for such a comprehensive look at this issue, heartbreaking as it is. Stevan BosanacPetaluma, California This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Superb reporting.

Great pair of articles about the Skagit River; fascinating and something I’m deeply interested in across the West, but especially as a Seattle resident (August 2021). I think Washington has an interesting opportunity to lead the way and become a model for Western dam removal.  One thing I was left curious about was the cascading […]

I thought “Uncertain water supply” (June 2021) was a deeply engaging and illuminating piece of regional journalism. It is clear that a lot of effort was invested in the research and reporting of the article’s subject, and it is very much reflected in the writing. It is a great example of the kind of investigative […]

I lived in prime Sonoran Desert Toad habitat from 1989-2019 and read “A hallucinogenic toad in peril” (July 2021) with interest, especially since I know people who occasionally harvested the toad’s hallucinogenic secretions. The habitat I refer to is a facility built on abandoned cotton fields in Pinal County, Arizona. Nightly watering of the grass […]

Thank you for your editor’s note “Keeping up with the changing West” (June 2021). As the editor of a regional weekly focused on agriculture, farming life and related politics in Southern and Western Norway, your words confirm to me what also our magazine Bondevennen (“Farmer’s Friend”) really is and should be all about: celebrating our […]

Wufei Yu’s excellent reporting “A reality check on Biden’s ‘30 by 30’ conservation plan” (hcn.org, June 23, 2021) springs open the conversation for the nation to digest and design a better 30×30. I am inspired to study the report. Elaine JeffersonNew York, New York This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with […]

Thanks to Maya Kapoor for her excellent series on lithium mines (“When Indigenous religious freedom and public-lands management clash,” July 2021, and “The next mining boom?” March 2021). Cultural and environmental damage worldwide weigh heavily on us already. I, for one, can’t wait for a better alternative fuel. Valerie McBrideBoulder, Colorado This article appeared in […]

The claim that Colorado and other Western states are being loved to death is wildly overstated, except for the most-Instagrammed spots (“Public lands inundated,” June 2021). I backpacked 732 miles diagonally across Colorado from the southeast to northwest corners in the summer of 2020 and encountered no more than three hikers a day in every […]

I’m guessing I’m a bit more urban and left-leaning than Neil Snyder (Letters, June 2021, “Changes”), but I largely agree with him about HCN. Yet I’m sticking with you for now, renewing for just one year based on Jennifer Sahn’s first issue as editor-in-chief.  She may not be a physicist, like HCN’s best in my […]