Letter to the editor

This great piece of journalism makes me want to weep (HCN, 4/2/07). How can our lawmakers be so careless as to allow this crap to continue? We need state and federal OSHA enforcement and reform! Thanks, Mr. Ring and HCN, for exposing a side of our energy consumption that few of us consider. Joshua Moro […]

Great package (HCN, 4/2/07). It reminds me of stories my mom told me about growing up in Sopris, Colo. She said when there were cave-ins at the coal mines, the mine bosses would get the mules out and leave the dead miners inside. The mules were valuable, she said. The dead miners weren’t. Lori Ozzello […]

I can’t tell you how much I admire your “Death in the Energy Fields” project (HCN, 4/2/07). It’s been a long time coming. As I read it, I couldn’t help recalling my days as a young reporter in Sidney, Mont., in the heart of the Williston Basin. I covered the death of a 34-year-old oilfield […]

I worked in the oil fields in the mid-1950s, so I have some direct knowledge of what that work and the workers were like — 15 years before OSHA was born. I’m sure that all the facts in the article are true (and I hate what all those rigs are doing to the land) but […]

Jonathan Thompson says in your March 5 issue that “thanks to humans, the earth is warming up, sea levels will rise, and pestilence and severe weather events will follow” (HCN, 3/5/07). Approximately 40 percent of our warming is due to solar activity. Cows contribute methane gas and even our forests give off carbon dioxide. Sea […]

“The Silence of the Bees” incorporated one tiny error. Hannah Nordhaus writes: “… microscopic tracheal mites that set up shop in a honeybee’s feeding tube and shorten its lifespan.” I’m no honeybee biologist, but I was trained as an entomologist. “Tracheae” are the abdominal tubes that insects use to breathe. So it’s more likely that […]

It was like suddenly discovering the face or object hidden in a maze, a “find Waldo” sort of experience. Here I was, reading with growing concern and despondency one more article alerting me to yet another assault on the environment, this one posed by an “extraordinarily prolific and costly invasive species” — the quagga mussel. […]

As your “Disposable workers of the oil and gas fields” story says, no death should be overlooked or treated as unimportant. However, in comparison to the 89 deaths that occurred in the drilling industry from 2000 to 2006 in the states of Colorado, Utah, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, and North Dakota, there were approximately 10,600 […]

Regarding the “Disposable workers of the oil and gas fields” story, I worked as a derrick and floor hand back in 1968 in New Mexico. Drillers are always under pressure to get in and out of a hole, no matter what the cost. If you complain about safety or work conditions, you may find yourself […]

A recent HCN story describes a major delay in planning or building a bullet train to link California’s major cities. As someone who has been working to restore and conserve wildlife corridors in Southern California for a decade, I am relieved. The bullet train needs a few more years of planning. Although you’d never know […]

Poor Lynell Schalk: I share her frustration. In 1979, I was a seasonal Grand Gulch ranger when Turkey Pen Ruin was being systematically looted. At the time, nobody knew who was doing it, and my repeated reports to the BLM Monticello office went unheeded, even after I pulled a hidden shovel out of the ruin’s […]

I have enjoyed reading your newspaper for over 10 years. However, when I read the new editor’s call for amnesty for all undocumented aliens in the U.S., I realized that HCN is no longer a paper for people that “care about the West.” Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, anyone who takes […]

Regarding the Feb. 19 Editor’s Note, it is refreshing to read something that actually makes sense regarding the subject of illegal immigration. The solution is to find a way to accommodate the people who want to come to this country and work, and at the same time to find a way for illegal immigrants who […]

While I know you need to take a little literary license to keep the controversy alive and sell papers, you went way over the edge and into fiction with your article “The end of ‘analysis paralysis’?” You state five times in this article that under the new planning regulations “Forest plans would no longer be […]

I read with interest and amusement “A Wolf’s Life” by Erin Halcomb. While the age and tenacity of wolf B7 is remarkable and surely notable, there were a few inaccuracies in the story. B7’s mate, B11, was not named “Blackfire” by the schoolchildren in Salmon. The name came from a grade school in Meridian, Idaho, […]

Jason Fisher’s essay “The Knowledge of Mules” contains an intimate reality that a person can only express through real life experience, something fiction can’t touch. It’s a masterpiece that HCN should be very proud to have circulated. I guess you can tell it hit home with me, but moreover, HCN continues to impress me with […]

Jason Fisher’s essay on his experiences with mules brings optimism. Seems like the younger generations have strayed far away from such non-motorized pursuits. It is great to know there are still young individuals such as Fisher who like to see the landscape from atop an equine’s back. I challenge anyone to see how different the […]

I object to author John Dougherty’s assessment that “Marijuana isn’t the only drug being smuggled” across the Tohono O’odham Nation’s border with Mexico. Marijuana is not a drug. It is a plant that is smoked without any processing necessary, unlike the commercial tobacco that kills millions every year. There has never been any legitimate proof […]

“Whack-a-Mole” is Editor John Mecklin’s free expression about opposition to immigration, but if one opposes illegal aliens one is branded “xenophobic” by Mr. Mecklin. I ask Mr. Mecklin, how many times has he visited Mexico, or been billeted with blacks, Hispanics or Asians? Ever had Hispanic roommates? People that oppose illegal immigration (70 percent of […]

I really enjoyed the article “One Nation Under Fire.” I am a contract archaeologist working at the San Miguel Gate, monitoring the archaeological sites during the construction of vehicle barriers. I thought that your article was very true to the situation. So many people seem to underestimate the issues along the border and on the […]