The most expensive and protracted battle over an endangered species is at last approaching its day of reckoning in Portland, Ore. Sometime this spring, federal District Court Judge James Redden will decide the terms of a recovery plan for some two dozen endangered salmon stocks in the Columbia River Basin. Like the famous Boldt Decision […]
Writers on the Range
Posted inWotr
A uranium mill makes no sense in western Colorado
I drink water straight from the tap. Generally, if someone tells me something is safe, I accept that it probably is. So I’d love to be relaxed about the proposed Piñon Ridge uranium mill just outside of Naturita, Colo., but I can’t. The mill, whose permit was recently approved by the state’s health department, is […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Poisonous language on both sides of the fence
The shooting slaughter in Tucson Jan. 8 and the subsequent national debate about the tone and effect of our political rhetoric came home to roost in San Juan County recently. The media reported that several “Wanted: Dead or Alive” posters, threatening members of the environmental group Great Old Broads for Wilderness had been discovered by […]
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Let me tell you about a real winter
One day last week it was cold — really cold — but not quite record-breaking. The weatherman reported that the record for the day was set back in 1979: 31 degrees below zero. I checked my old ranch notebook, and yes, 1979 was quite a winter. We’d kept the cattle on the range in Wyoming […]
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Monsanto wins, for now
The Obama administration struck a blow against freedom for food and agriculture in late January, when the U.S. Agriculture Department deregulated genetically modified alfalfa seed. The agency’s decision threatens to deprive farmers of the right to produce milk and meat free of genetic tampering, and it also threatens the right of consumers to purchase unadulterated […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2011: Obama and the West
Religious leaders shouldn’t duck their responsibility
On a Sunday morning last fall, leaders from Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other faiths led the third annual “blessing of the waves” in Huntington Beach, Calif. The event celebrated the ocean’s spiritual value and also protested marine pollution, including the rapid acidification of the world’s oceans associated with climate change. Over 3,000 people participated, and […]
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The woodpile and me
My husband claims not to believe in the “end times” and all that, but I’m not sure I trust his denials. How else, other than a firm belief in a coming apocalypse, to explain his obsession with firewood? Never mind that we live in Cortez, Colo., on the fringe of the desert, in a home […]
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Alien life, it turns out, is much closer than Mars
Driving out Highway 167 north of California’s salty Mono Lake, you whiz by a jeep trail that heads for a crescent shore known as Ten Mile Beach. Few people find it, fewer still swim there. Once the bottom of the lake, this wide beach was gradually exposed as Los Angeles diverted the lake’s tributaries, starting […]
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Yes to wolves, but not so many
As a hunter, conservationist and also a supporter of wolves taking their rightful place in the West, I take issue with the position of most environmental groups on this matter. By just about every scientific metric, wolves have recovered in the Northern Rocky Mountains. At last count, we had a wolf population of 1,700 plus […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2011: Serendipity in the Desert
Ronald Reagan: The accidental environmentalist
Expect to be hearing plenty about Ronald Reagan: The centennial of his birth is coming up soon. Our 40th president was born on Feb. 6, 1911, in Tampico, Ill. A commemorative postage stamp is in the works, along with traveling exhibits, academic symposiums and sculpture unveilings. Few Western environmentalists will be celebrating — but maybe […]
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A poet whom readers won’t let go
Remembering William Stafford, a popular Northwestern poet
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Keep a public hand on water
The history of the West is peppered with water cowboys. Just recall William Mulholland, whose role in Los Angeles’ secret grab of water from Owens Valley, Calif., was made famous in the movie Chinatown, or Colorado’s contemporary water baron, Aaron Million, who’s pushing a $3 billion, privately funded scheme to funnel water to Colorado’s Front […]