Some health experts say current state and federal measures won’t lower ozone pollution to safe levels across the state’s Front Range.
Jim Robbins
Montana mice may hold the secret to how viruses spread
Researchers are studying how climate change and biodiversity affect viruses’ jump from animals to people.
Ozone pollution is on the rise in the West
Wildfires, oil and gas drilling, vehicle emissions, and climate change all combine to create more days with unhealthy levels of the colorless, odorless gas.
The once-perennial Gila River ebbs to an uncertain future
‘We are in uncharted territory.’
As it goes high-tech, wildlife biology loses its soul
In 1978, I was researching one of my first wildlife stories, working along the North Fork of the Flathead River in northwestern Montana, one of the wildest places in the Lower 48. A wolf was believed to be prowling into Montana from British Columbia –– an important discovery if true, because wolves had been absent […]
Holy water
The Catholic Church seeks to restore the Columbia River and the church’s relevance to the natural world
On the path to a greener church
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. An organization with as much heft as the Catholic Church, and with 2,000 years of history, does not move quickly or simply. The Columbia River Basin pastoral letter, scheduled for release in November, has been five years in the making. But even five years […]
Wolves may not need Big Brother
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The wolves are back, big time. Some veteran wolf biologists call the designated federal restoration a big mistake. “They don’t need to reintroduce wolves,” says Diane Boyd, who for the past 15 years has studied wolves as they have migrated down from Canada and […]
Busted town pursues industrial recreation
ANACONDA, Mont. – Can famous golfer Jack Nicklaus reverse the sagging fortunes of this crumbling smeltertown by building a golf course on top of a hazardous waste site? The company that owns the site, Arco, is betting $10 million that he can (HCN, 11/29/93). “Some people will say I lost my marbles,” Nicklaus told Anacondans […]
Camping out in the Merry Widow Mine
BOULDER, Mont. – Most people hear the word radon and think of an odorless, colorless gas that seeps into homes and can cause cancer. But some, like Denise Palmer, think of radon as a miracle drug. Crippled with psoriatic arthritis, her hands had become so painful she could no longer pull her clothes on or […]
Montana town puts out unwelcome mat
BOZEMAN, Mont. – This quiet, mountain-ringed college town just north of Yellowstone National Park has now been discovered by everyone from movie stars to footloose entrepreneurs and just plain folks. But to the people who live here the influx is more invasion than discovery. This is how a local artist feels about newcomers: “If I […]
Yvon Chouinard: A mutinous captain of industry
“I never wanted to be a businessman,” says the owner of Patagonia clothing and gear company, “because I thought businessmen were real greaseballs. In fact I still do.” Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/22.12/download-entire-issue
FBI changes four with attack on power line
On May 30, a flare broke the darkness of an Arizona desert evening, a signal for some 30 FBI agents and a helicopter to move in to arrest two men and a woman authorities claim were attempting to fell a tower that carries high-voltage lines to a water pump for the Central Arizona Project, a […]
Nevada fights its second nuclear war
The U.S. Department of Energy is preparing to place the nation’s first high-level nuclear waste repository on federal land adjacent to a former nuclear test site. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/21.9/download-entire-issue
Invisible gold fuels Elko’s boom
The discovery of rich gold deposits in the brown Tuscarora Mountains northwest of Elko, Nev., has ignited a latter day gold rush. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/21.3/download-entire-issue
Discouraging words in Montana
Miles City, a community of 10,000 which has spent 100 years living and breathing ranching, is experiencing traumatic change as economic and other forces shove the family ranch off the Western stage. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/20.18/download-entire-issue
Hurling sand into society’s gears
Earth First! was born in the spring of 1980. Between tequila and beers and camping beneath the stars in the desert near a tiny Mexican border town, four men dedicated to the preservation of biological diversity hatched the notion of a group that was part Sierra Club, part Hell’s Angels, part Yippie. Download entire issue […]
Beauty, isolation and cheap land bring a sect to Montana
The Church Universal and Triumphant, a wealthy religious group from southern California, recently moved to a ranch called the Royal Teton on the northern boundary of Yellowstone National Park. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/19.17/download-entire-issue
The continuing saga of the West’s wild horse
The number of horses on the range doubles roughly every seven years, creating conflict between ranchers, land managers and those who see the animals as a last remnant of the Wild West. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/19.5/download-entire-issue
Two views of the grizzly
As grizzly bears cause trouble for ranchers near Choteau, Mont., a father and son see the issue differently. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/18.17/download-entire-issue