High Country News March 05, 2007
Feature
Wish You Weren’t Here
Quagga mussels – an extraordinarily prolific and costly invasive species – have appeared in Lake Mead, and no one is sure how to keep these unwanted newcomers from infesting the West.
Editor's Note
Welcome to the Homogocene
The rapid spread of invasive species like quagga and zebra mussels could transform the once-isolated and ecologically unique West into just another McDonaldized patch of the planet.
Dear Friends
We're Honored
HCN’s Ray Ring wins the 2006 George Polk Award for Political Reporting for his story, “Taking Liberties.”
Two Weeks in the West
Two weeks in the West
The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has bad news; Govs. propose global warming legislation; nuclear revival in the wings; Rockies Prosperity Act back in Congress; Arizona may stifle ballot measures; Bush’s budget; the West’s electrical grid.
Uncommon Westerners
A wolf’s life
The wolf known as B-7 – the last surviving member of a group of Canadian wolves released in Idaho in 1995 – has died.
News
Getting the lead out
Condor 134’s harrowing experience with lead poisoning exemplifies these endangered birds’ greatest challenge – which some advocates hope to ease by banning lead bullets in California
Stream leases languish
Efforts to privatize instream-flow protection – to keep enough water in rivers and streams to sustain their ecological functions – face tough going in the West.
Book Reviews
A geography of the imagination
In Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, edited by Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney, 45 diverse writers define unusual geographical terms used across the country.
Essays
Don’t send a check, send yourself
In an effort to “think globally and act locally,” the author volunteers his time for environmental causes, rather than just reaching for his checkbook.
The knowledge of mules
After more than a decade of a solitary existence packing mules in the Northern Rockies, the writer is seriously injured and must reconsider his way of life.
Heard Around the West
Heard around the West
Gail Kimbell and the vanishing Forest Service budget; not saying the Pledge in Mesa, Ariz.; racing old beaters in California; talkative men’s rooms; saying it (the Miranda warning, that is) with flowers.
Letters
A moment of silence for our meat
The once-over on overgrazing
Let's start with a Kennecott Mine
Labels are for pickle jars
When analogies go bad
Our sincere apologies
'Taking Liberties' on the High Plains
Related Stories
Battling over ballast
Congress has tried to regulate ballast water in ships in order to stop the spread of zebra mussels, but so far loopholes in the law and tussles over policy have made the effort ineffective.
Don’t move a mussel
Boaters, kayakers, anglers and other recreationists can help stop the spread of quagga mussels and other aquatic invasives by following a few simple rules.
