High Country News December 12, 2005
Feature
The Final Energy Frontier
The end of the oil and gas era may be in sight, but the current energy boom in the West means that a rough and wild ride is still ahead
Editor's Note
The view from above
High Country News prides itself on keeping close to the ground, but for this special issue, we look at the energy boom in the West from a global perspective
Uncommon Westerners
Healing the border with words
Award-winning author Denise Chavez created the Border Book Festival, and founded a Cultural Center in Mesilla, N.M., to help heal the cultural wounds of the U.S.-Mexico border
News
A bullet for the bearer of bad news
After Michele DeHart of the Fish Passage Center in Portland, Ore., publicly supported a plan to protect salmon, angry lawmakers led by Sen. Larry Craig yanked the center’s funding
The Latest Bounce
"Speed dating" brings Utah legislators and lobbyists together; EPA cleaning up fewer sites; Fallon, Nev., residents breathing dangerous tungsten and cobalt; poaching at Wyoming drill rigs
Flood insurance crimps Western waterways
Critics say that FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program is encouraging development in flood-prone areas alongside Western rivers, such as the Rio Grande
Sheepherders flock to better-paying jobs
Wyoming lawmakers are trying to pass a law to prevent sheepherders from quitting their jobs without notice in search of better-paying employment
BLM boosts winter drilling
The BLM wants to allow oil and gas companies to drill near Pinedale, Wyo., in wintertime, and some conservationists think the change may actually help declining mule deer populations
'Green' seal of approval considered for national forests
The Forest Service is considering "green" certification for timber produced on the national forests, but environmentalists fear it's a form of greenwashing that will wrongly legitimize public-land logging
Book Reviews
Not just any book about the grasslands
In his serious and poetic first book, Not Just Any Land, John Price takes a literary journey into the heart of America’s grasslands
Coming home to a Montana town
Karen Brichoux’s pensive new novel, The Girl She Left Behind, recounts the challenges faced by a young woman on her return to a small Montana town
Bear
In Bear, Robert E. Bieder traces the history of this fascinating animal across centuries of time and a variety of different cultures
Earth Notes
Earth Notes, edited by Peter Friederici, is a tasty selection of tidbits about the Southwest’s canyon country
Living Within Our Means: Beyond the Fossil Fuel Credit Card
Engineer and city councilman Kamyar Enshayan considers the inevitable end of the fossil fuel joyride
Essays
Wheelchairs and wilderness can coexist
Accessible trails for wheelchair users should be a part of new wilderness legislation
Alvin Josephy: A gentle, graceful advocate for sovereignty
Writer and historian Alvin Josephy is remembered as a good friend to Indian people, especially the Nez Perce Tribe
Vine Deloria Jr.: Writer, scholar and inspired trickster
Vine Deloria Jr., author of Custer Died for Your Sins, is remembered as a witty, impassioned and iconoclastic writer, historian, and teacher, who fought for Indian peoples and their right to self-determination
Heard Around the West
Heard around the West
The Lost People of Mountain Village; big-game tax-deduction scam; pigs and developers; coping with the medfly; grizzlies vs. highways in Canada
Letters
Don't blame the Park Service
Skeletons in the Klamath Basin's closets
Homegrown protectionism
Light rail can't solve growth problems
County worked hard to control drilling impact
Related Stories
Congress bets on oil shale
Northeastern Utah, southern Wyoming and western Colorado are humming with new talk of oil shale, but industry insiders say that the technology has years to go before oil shale development is financially and environmentally viable
Tapping into energy's fringe
As energy companies go after "unconventional" natural gas – such as tight-sands gas and coalbed methane –the environmental impacts are becoming increasingly apparent
Westerners slowly adapt to high prices
Westerners are making a few small efforts to conserve energy in the face of higher prices, but environmentalists wonder what it will take to inspire a real change in behavior
Forget idealism
With the demand for renewable energy growing and the costs falling, solar and wind power have moved out of the realm of idealism into that of the marketplace
High Country News in your inbox!