High Country News

Protecting wildlife corridors remains more theory than practice

There's a growing understanding of the scientific importance of wildlife migration corridors, but protecting them is a huge political challenge.

by Mary Ellen Hannibal, Dec 29, 2011
Wild lands by any other name

For 18 years, Westerners have been arguing about BLM’s wilderness-worthy land; now, the Obama administration has stepped in.

by Matt Jenkins, May 17, 2011
Oil and gas drilling clouds the West's air

Air pollution from oil and gas drilling is on the increase in the Rocky Mountain West, and environmentalists and energy companies are trying to prevent it from getting any worse

by Ray Ring, Oct 31, 2005
BLM experiments with camouflage to hide renewable power structures

The Bureau of Land Management is working with landscape architects and camouflage experts to better disguise renewable energy infrastructure on public lands.

by Kimberly Hirai, Nov 03, 2011
Busted in Rio Blanco

Rio Blanco County, Colo., which was just recently buzzing with oil and gas development, now faces an unexpected slowdown as the national economy tanks.

by Rebecca Clarren, May 06, 2009
Nothing out there can be a very good thing

Julianne Couch surveys the vastness of Wyoming’s Adobe Town badlands and hopes that oil and gas drilling does not invade its beautiful emptiness.

by Julianne Couch, Oct 15, 2007
Boom! Boom!

An energy boom of unprecedented proportions is transforming western Colorado towns like Rifle, which just recently recovered from the last big energy boom – and a catastrophic bust.

by Francisco Tharp, May 12, 2008
Power of the picture

High Country News photographer Morgan Heim joins the International League of Conservation Photographers to document the gasfields and the wildlands around Pinedale, Wyo.

by Jonathan Thompson, Jul 21, 2008
EPA hearings can be so, like, high school

At an EPA hearing on oil and gas drilling, the so-called professionals scoffed and snickered at the testimony of local families.

by Andrea Gelfuso, Aug 31, 2010
Energy succeeds where housing developers can't

As the West's housing boom fades, natural resource extraction surges, and a defunct housing development on the east side of Colorado Springs, Colo., may soon face drilling by Ultra Petroleum.

by Sarah Gilman, Nov 13, 2011