High Country News May 02, 2005
Feature
The Winds of Change
Colorado citizens voted last November to increase their state’s reliance on power from the wind and sun, but King Coal still rules the state, and the White House seems determined to keep it on the throne
Related Stories
Blades, birds and bats: Wind energy and wildlife not a cut-and-dried issue
Wind farms are working to make their turbines less hazardous to birds and bats
Renewable Energy Standards: How do states match up?
Six Western states now have renewable energy standards
Editor's Note
The revolution will not be televised
It’s a good thing leadership is emerging in the West on energy issues, because President Bush’s energy plan is a step in the wrong direction
Dear Friends
Dear friends
"Animal Planet" at the HCN office; Leslie Glustrom vs. coal; correction; HCN Paonia potluck
Uncommon Westerners
For this logger, twisted trees are the future
Woodworker Gordon West turns small and irregular pine logs into useful building materials in his shop near Silver City, N.M.
News
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.
Follow-up
Montana approves green-power initiative; geothermal company takes Valles Caldera Preserve to court; bills to exempt hydraulic fracturing from regulation; William Jensen Cottrell sentenced for SUV vandalism
Backbreaking work props up 'sustainable' crops
California farmworkers fight for stricter regulations on hand weeding, only to find themselves at odds with organic farmers.
As threats loom, conservation dollars disappear
With the Land and Water Conservation Fund at a 10-year low and Western politicians trying to sell off the public lands, conserving open space requires the kind of creative solution that helped saved Colorado’s Beaver Brook watershed
Wilderness wallows in rural county
Despite local support for the creation of a Badlands Wilderness Area east of Bend, Ore., the Deschutes County Commission votes to take no action at all on the matter
On the Colorado, a grand experiment meets Mother Nature
A recent experimental flood from Glen Canyon Dam may have killed endangered native humpback chub in the Colorado River through Grand Canyon
Bears and bull trout may block mine
A judge rules that constructing the Rock Creek Mine would jeopardize threatened populations of grizzly and bull trout in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness of Montana
Oil and gas opponents will have to move faster
The Bureau of Land Management is shortening the amount of time that citizens and environmental groups in Wyoming and Utah will have to protest oil and gas leases
Book Reviews
Down — but far from out — in Drummond
In Drummond: Ranch Life in the West, Jill Brody uses photographs and interviews to paint a vivid portrait of life in a hardscrabble Montana ranching town
Getting smarter about energy use
In his latest book, Energy Resolution, Howard Geller offers his suggestions for a sustainable energy future
Serafina's Stories
Serafina’s Stories by Rudolfo Anaya tells the tale of a 17th century Pueblo Indian story-teller’s encounter with the Spanish governor in old New Mexico
The River Has Never Divided Us: A Border History of La Junta de los Rios
In The River Has Never Divided Us, Jefferson Morganthaler studies the hard-working people of La Junta de los Rios, a river basin along the U.S.-Mexican border
The Mountains Know Arizona
In The Mountains Know Arizona, Michael Collier and Rose Houk combine photographs and words to create a spectacular homage to the mountains of Arizona
Essays
So-called 'peace treaty' won't save the Rio Grande
Environmentalists made a mistake when they settled with the city of Albuquerque over water use on the Middle Rio Grande in New Mexico
The devil made us do it
From Devils Tower to the Devils Slide, Old Nick is very much at home in the West
Heard Around the West
Heard around the West
Honor in bar fights; philanthropic roughnecks; salmon vs. sea lions; skunks; cowboy caviar; "Liquid Gold"; slime-mold beetles named for Bush and friends
