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
What lies beneath

When pesticide chemicals were found underneath the houses of Barber Orchard, N.C., it aroused fears nationwide about the risks of building on former agricultural land.

by Sarah Gilman, Dec 05, 2010
Backyard poisons?

Soil samples from the yards of two Yakima families showed intriguing but not always comforting results.

by Rebecca Clarren, Dec 05, 2010
Pity the Sacketts? Not much

An Idaho couple are getting a lot of sympathy because the EPA has halted construction of their planned home on a wetland, but if the agency would be more open with the facts, it would come out looking better.

by Judith Lewis Mernit, Jan 26, 2012
Braving the political winds

Region 8 EPA official Robbie Roberts retired in June, leaving a legacy of strong critiques of runaway energy development.

by Eric Peterson, Aug 20, 2008
Coal’s other mess

Even as the air over power plants clears, the coal combustion waste on the ground gets worse – and the EPA seems disinclined to deal with the problem.

by Jonathan Thompson, Nov 26, 2007
Two weeks in the West

EPA stymies California’s attempt to cut tailpipe emissions; the West is growing but not sure where its next meal or drink of water will come from; increasing amounts of ammonium – and guns – in the parks; avalanche fatalities are up.

by Sarah Gilman and Jodi Peterson, Jan 21, 2008
Two weeks in the West

A good time to buy a McMansion – cheap; lawmakers wrangle over development; “eco-terrorism” in suburbia; EPA head honcho in trouble; cleaning up dirty Western air – and a few dirty Western politicians.

by Sarah Gilman and Jodi Peterson, Mar 31, 2008
Farming's Toxic Legacy

Long-banned pesticides linger in the soils of neighborhoods built on former agricultural land in central Washington.

by Rebecca Clarren, Dec 13, 2010
Oregon ignores logging road runoff, to the peril of native fish

Oregon has long refused to regulate sediment runoff from logging roads as pollution under the Clean Water Act. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide what the state should do.

by Joshua Zaffos, Jul 27, 2012