Feature

Magic Valley Uprising

An unusual grassroots coalition of citizen activists stops a coal-fired merchant power plant from being built in Idaho’s Magic Valley

Editor's Note

California, here we come

California has a lot to teach the Interior West – particularly about clean energy and water conservation

Dear Friends

Dear friends

Katie Lee and other visitors; where do you get your news? farewell, Philip Hyde; notes from readers; missing pages in HCN?

Uncommon Westerners

Stargazer aims his scopes at gas industry

Astronomer Perry Walker uses his stargazing tools and skills to work with the oil and gas industry to prevent air pollution in Wyoming

News

Burning down the house

Despite the promises of the Healthy Forests Act, the Bush administration has proposed sweeping cuts to community fire programs in the West

The Latest Bounce

Mining company allowed to dump waste into Alaskan lake; Colorado split-estate bill unravels; Arizona’s Oak Flat may become a copper mine

Pure bison make a comeback

In Montana, the American Prairie Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund are working together to create a genuinely wild bison herd, one free of cattle genes

Hobby miners flock to public streams

Amateur gold prospectors are invading the West’s publicly owned streams, and environmentalists say the hobby’s popularity threatens fish and the environment

County and Forest Service bury the shovel

Elko County, Nev., has made an agreement with the Forest Service to end the long-running fight over a dirt road in Jarbidge Canyon on the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest

Corporations ask feds to set emissions limits

Executives from six of the nation’s largest energy companies have asked federal lawmakers to set mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions

Guest farmworkers get a new deal

The United Farm Workers has signed a contract with agricultural labor-supply company Global Horizons protecting the rights of guest farmworkers

Book Reviews

Ode to a very hot spot

Live! From Death Valley is John Soennichsen’s "love letter to an ill-tempered mistress," California’s Death Valley

A season of change

In Chasing Spring: An American Journey Through a Changing Season, nature writer Bruce Stutz follows spring from New York to Alaska, examining the surprising changes that global warming is bringing

Ingredients: History, preservatives

In Preserving Western History, editor Andrew Gulliford has put together "the first college reader to address public history in the American West."

Essays

In Washington, a broad-based effort aims to kick the oil habit

The Set America Free Coalition is a new organization that brings together liberals and conservatives to try to reduce America’s dependency on imported fossil fuels

A very brief conversation with a Jet Fighter

A long solitary hike through an empty, pristine desert is interrupted by a close encounter with an F-16 fighter plane

Heard Around the West

Heard around the West

Composting roadkill in Montana; Army mules for Afghanistan in Wyoming; obsolete Earth First! Bumper stickers; 100-year-old retiree dies; Butte’s new tourist attraction is a pit

Letters

Gays aren't going away

Too many people just like Fayhee

The rise of American socialism

Give Norton some credit

Is Pombo the kick we need?

The tide of new generations

Related Stories

Meet Idaho's Revolutionaries

In their own words, some of the Magic Valley citizens who fought the Sempra coal plant describe the uprising and how they got involved in it

The push is on for 'clean coal'

Led by California, Western states are encouraging the energy industry to move toward cleaner coal technology