High Country News

Let the EPA finish its work in Pavillion, Wyoming

The gas industry and its political partners are going to great lengths to try to derail and discredit an EPA report that blames Pavillion, Wyoming’s polluted water on hydraulic fracking.

by John Fenton, Jan 23, 2012
Springtime in the Rockies

The beautiful spring in Colorado's San Luis Valley is a bitter contrast to the tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

by Christina Nealson, Jun 10, 2010
Greens need to occupy the Occupy movement

Today's activists need to get more involved in protesting the environmental profiteering that is destroying our planet.

by Tim Lydon, Dec 15, 2011
For steelhead, dirty water might be better than clean

A wastewater treatment plant provides nutrients that help endangered steelhead thrive in an Idaho stream.

by Amanda Peacher, Jul 10, 2011
Water-quality standards unfairly burden rural communities

The plight of a small water and sewer association in rural Mora, N.M -- caught in a tangle of federal and state clean water rules it can’t afford to meet -- echoes experienced by other rural communities around the West.

by Judith Lewis Mernit, Dec 20, 2011
EPA pulls back on fish-killing rule change

The Environmental Protection Agency withdraws a proposed rule change that would have allowed fatal amounts of selenium in fish.

by Gail Binkly, Nov 22, 2004
A leak-proof fuel tank? No such thing

Diesel fuel – leaking from a massive railroad refueling depot –slips into a major drinking water aquifer on the Idaho-Washington border.

by Kevin Taylor, Mar 21, 2005
Follow-up

EPA will investigate allegations that bunk science led to approval of hydraulic fracturing; racketeering lawsuit against environmentalist dismissed; ACLU sues over BLM’s decision to Wyoming’s Martin’s Cove historic site to Mormon Church

by Matt Jenkins, Apr 18, 2005
Colorado River kisses a toxic mess good-bye

The Department of Energy finally agrees to move the Atlas uranium mine tailings pile away from Moab, Utah, and the flood risk of the Colorado River.

by Matt Jenkins, May 02, 2005
Follow-up

Ag Secretary Mike Johanns says his agency may relax ban on slaughtering "downer" cows for human consumption; California sets official, but nonbinding, goals for perchlorate in drinking water; San Juan Generating Station to cut mercury and other emissions

by Laura Paskus, May 16, 2005