High Country News October 13, 2003
Feature
The Big Story Written Small
The West’s big newspapers fall short when it comes to covering today’s most important issues: the "big story" about the environment, and the impacts on the region of growth and development
Editor's Note
Talking about a revolution
Environmental issues in the West are the region’s "big story" – and it’s high time the region’s big newspapers covered them adequately
Dear Friends
Dear Friends
Congratulations to newlyweds Michelle Nijhuis and Jack Perrin; Keep independent journalism alive through the Research Fund; the paper for people who care about the West
News
New Mexico: A nuclear homeland?
Lea County, N.M., is courting Louisiana Energy Services, a company that wants to build a uranium-enrichment facility to create fuel for nuclear power plants
Follow-up
Superfund runs out of money; Sen. Pete Dominici reneges on promise to not drill in ANWR; Kwicksutaineuk Tribe in British Columbia sues corporate fish farms; whistleblower Kevin Gambrell fired from Farmington, N.M., Indian Minerals Office; company wants to
Return of the King
Scientists have finally found a way to save the white pine from blister rust – but finding space in the forest to plant new trees is proving almost as difficult
Clearing the air
California farmers have long been exempt from the Clean Air Act, but that may change, as legislators and activists tackle the health and environmental problems linked to agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley
Contamination uncovered at Energy office
Beryllium contamination in a Las Vegas Energy Department complex may have come from a 1965 nuclear reactor explosion, some 85 miles away
Urban planners look to farmland to feed industrial growth
Portland, Ore., is bursting at the seams, and urban planners are starting to covet the Willamette Valley’s farmland
Pygmy-owl may lose protection
A court ruling may lead to the removal of the endangered status currently assigned to Arizona’s cactus ferruginous pygmy-owls
National monument back under attack
In Utah, Kane and Garfield county commissioners escalate their fight against Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, demanding the reduction of funding and staff and the demotion of monument manager Dave Hunsaker
Calendar
Book Reviews
Back down the fireline
In Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines of American Wildfire, John N. Mclean leads readers through sweaty-palmed human encounters with Western wildfires
In the field with fire
A Season of Fire: Four Months on the Firelines of America’s Forests by Douglas Gantenbein refuses to glamorize firefighting or settle for simple solutions to the West’s fire problems
Ready, set, vote
A coalition called America Votes plans to educate voters and work with grassroots groups across the country to pump up election-day turnout
Essays
Western patriots are rebelling against the Patriot Act
Bozeman, Mont., is one of over 175 communities in the U.S. that have passed resolutions opposing the Patriot Act
Where’s Teddy when you need him?
The writer wishes Theodore Roosevelt could return and give the Republican party – and the rest of us – a good talking-to about conservation today
Heard Around the West
Heard Around the West
Desert residents vs. desert sand; really overdue library books; Ken Lay’s Aspen real estate woes; sage grouse vs. jets in Wyoming; "emergency phone" calls in North Dakota; gardener named Gardener vs. Laramie, Wyo.; and Oregon driver vs. bee
Related Stories
One good example: The publisher
A.L. "Butch" Alford of the Lewiston, Idaho, Morning Tribune is a good example of a publisher who truly believes in independent journalism
Excellence
The Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources presented the first Wallace Stegner Awards in September to nine Western newspapers for excellence
One good example: The reporter
Karen Dorn Steele of the Spokane Spokesman-Review showed how a reporter at a regional paper can have a national impact, when she uncovered the extent of radioactive contamination at Hanford Nuclear Reservation
High Country News in your inbox!