A rancher and a researcher search for a better bovine — and think they’ve found one.
Southwest
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
An expedition along the imperiled Rio Grande
The river’s future may include longer droughts, larger floods and shrinking snowpack.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
Charles Bowden’s Fury
The Southwest loses its strongest voice.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
Adiós Charles Bowden
The writer passed away in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Aug. 30.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
On the edge with Edward Abbey, Charles Ives and the outlaws
One of Charles Bowden’s last essays.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
On the edge with Edward Abbey, Charles Ives and the outlaws
One of Charles Bowden’s last essays.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
“If there’s squash bugs in heaven, I ain’t staying” by Stacia Spragg-Braude
If there’s squash bugs in heaven, I ain’t staying Stacia Spragg-Braude, 200 pages, hardcover: $29.95 Museum of New Mexico Press, 2013 Nestled amid the orchards of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley is the old farming village of Corrales, where 85-year-old Evelyn Losack harvests fruit on land that has been in her family for 150 years. […]
Posted inArticles
After 11 years, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument reopens
Increased border security means that all 517 square miles are again open to the public.
Posted inArticles
Manmade quakes shake the Southwest
Tremors in Colorado and New Mexico linked to coalbed methane extraction.
Posted inArticles
Diversion plans for the Gila would have major impact, critics say
Small and medium-sized flows could be most affected.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2014: Lost in the Woods
Lost in the woods
How the Forest Service is botching its biggest restoration project.
Posted inArticles
New Mexico delays controversial Gila vote
Many unanswered questions remain about proposals to divert the state’s last undammed major river.
Posted inGoat
Summer rains in a drought-plagued state
How much does a monsoon season relieve drought?
Posted inGoat
Imminent tar sands mine incites civil disobedience in Utah
Two years ago, HCN contributing editor Jeremy Miller asked if Utah’s tar sands deposits could transform the Beehive State into the Alberta of the high desert. Jeremy’s story focused on a mine proposed by U.S. Oil Sands, a Canadian company, in the Book Cliffs south of Vernal. It’s long been known that eastern Utah’s geological […]
Posted inGoat
To protect hydropower, utilities will pay Colorado River water users to conserve
Here’s a sure sign that your region’s in drought: you stop paying your utility for the privilege of using water, and the utility starts paying you not to use water instead. Outlandish as it sounds, that’s what four major Western utilities and the federal government are planning to do next year through the $11 million […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
The bomb builders’ wives
The Wives of Los AlamosTaraShea Nesbit233 pages, hardcover: $25.Bloomsbury, 2014. In her deft debut novel, Colorado writer TaraShea Nesbit imagines the lives of the wives of the men who were stationed in New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, working on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Nesbit writes in the collective voice of the […]
Posted inGoat
Colorado River Basin groundwater levels drop even faster than reservoirs
When Lake Mead is full it’s the largest reservoir in the U.S., capable of holding two years’ worth of water from the Colorado River. But the Southwest has been trapped in a 14-year drought, and the states Mead feeds – Nevada, Arizona and California – are thirsty. The reservoir is now only about half full […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Photos of Bonneville Salt Flats
The Bonneville Salt Flats: Two Decades of Photography by Peter Vincent Peter Vincent with essays by Peter de Lory, Philip Linhares, Tom Fritz and others, 272 pages, hardcover: $85. Stance & Speed. 2013. “Salt fever”: That’s what drives thousands of people each year to gather with their hotrods, cars and motorcycles on the Utah-Nevada border, […]
Posted inGoat
New Mexico is getting lucky so far this fire season
Southern Californians are currently experiencing a phenomenon they call June Gloom, when the humid, hazy air that usually hangs out just above the ocean blows inland and lingers, trapped by a warm layer above it. Oh, what the good people of New Mexico would have given in recent years for that brand of gloom. Instead, […]
Posted inNovember 11, 2013: Cosmic Prospecting
A timeline of our fascination with outer space
The Southwest has long been a locus for space-related activities – and cosmic secrets. Its clear, dark skies are ideal for stargazing, while its isolated deserts are perfect for cutting-edge scientific research and for conspiracy and extraterrestrial enthusiasts. From meteorites colliding with Earth millennia ago to the dream of reaching space ourselves, we have an […]