My brother, Adam, and I grew up working summers on our family’s oyster farm on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. In between a few epic mud fights, we picked oysters, dug clams and learned a lot about the tides, hard work and the proper use of sunscreen. But when we took over managing the farm five years […]
Lissa James
Posted inAugust 17, 2009: From Corn to Cabernet
Brushed aside
Washington’s floral greens industry falters as beleaguered harvesters leave
Posted inWotr
Wherever you go, there you are
I lived alone in Paris for six months when I was 20. Technically, I had a roommate, an 80-year-old Frenchwoman who’d helped her father smuggle Jews out of the city during the Nazi occupation. She took in boarders to help pay the rent on her Latin Quarter apartment, and I was just one in a […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2008: An energy oasis in the political desert
Treehuggers and treecutters unite
Small foresters in Washington get a break that might just keep them in business
Posted inWotr
Water does move uphill toward money
Now that I’m out of college, I thought it was time to ask my elders for advice about investing in the stock market. They must have seen how confused I looked, because a week later, an investment letter arrived that promised to answer all my questions, and, incidentally, make me rich, fast. The letter featured […]
Posted inWotr
Christmas fuels the ‘bough industry’ in Washington
When my parents were first married, my father wanted to name their newly created logging company “Moonscape Logging.” Thankfully, my mother nixed that idea, although it was an apt description of the clear-cutting that happened on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula in the ’70s and ’80s. Once logs were taken out of the forest, whatever remained got […]
Posted inMay 16, 2005: Unsalvageable
In the Washington woods, managers face a catch-22
Critics say that by trying to please everyone, new rules could fail fish and wildlife
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Backbreaking work props up ‘sustainable’ crops
Organic farmers lead the fight against new worker protections
Posted inMay 16, 2005: Unsalvageable
Cows versus condos — Northwest style
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “In the Washington woods, managers face a catch-22.” Like ranches elsewhere in the West, small tree farms in Washington encompass some of the best fish and wildlife habitat: lowland areas close to streams. An estimated 40,000 people […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
Evolution of a timber family
My family owns a timber company in Washington state, and for us, money grows on trees. Every time we buy something, we see the physical signs of our consumption in our backyard. Paying for my recent college education, for example, took about 300 truckloads of second-growth Douglas fir, cedar and hemlock trees. A $60 pair […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Wildlife refuge may still be radioactive
Scientists may have discovered a radioactive “hot spot” at a future wildlife refuge surrounding the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. The plant, northwest of Denver, produced plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons for more than 30 years. The U.S. Department of Energy and Kaiser-Hill, the company contracted to clean up the site, plan to dispose […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Seattle’s rural neighbors rise up
Emboldened by a recently passed ballot initiative requiring Oregon’s state and local governments to pay for land-use regulations, residents in Seattle’s King County are whipping up a property-rights revolt of their own (HCN, 11/22/04: Election Day Surprises in the Schizophrenic West). In October, the Democrat-led county council adopted new land-use ordinances meant to protect “critical […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Graves halt a highway project
A recent decision in Washington state protects the largest prehistoric village ever discovered in the state, but puts a $284 million highway construction project on hold. To repair the 40-year-old Hood Canal Bridge, which connects the cities of the northern Olympic Peninsula with the Seattle area, the Washington State Department of Transportation needed to build […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
The Utah backcountry gets crowded
And a chance for change in the Wasatch comes and goes
Posted inDecember 20, 2004: Stand Your Ground
City slaps back at property-rights measure
Residents of Bend, Ore., might want to think twice about where they put that new pig farm or high-rise condo. A provision in a recently approved ordinance in the central Oregon city of 62,900 allows people to sue their neighbors if nearby development reduces property values. Adopted on Dec. 1, the new rule is a […]
Posted inWotr
My jeans grow on trees
My family owns a timber company in Washington state, and for us, money grows on trees. Every time we buy something, we see the physical signs of our consumption in our backyard. Paying for my recent college education, for example, took about 300 log truckloads of second-growth Douglas fir, cedar and hemlock trees. A $60 […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2004: Stand Your Ground
Fisheries agency rewards a loyal bureaucrat
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Conscientious Objectors.” People who worry about the Pacific Coast’s endangered salmon runs are likely to recognize James Lecky’s name. In 2002, Lecky, an assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries’ Southwest Region in Long Beach, Calif., reworked his agency’s flow recommendations for the Klamath River. The […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2004: Conservationist in a Conservative Land
Racetrack
ARIZONA Incumbent Rep. Rick Renzi, R, soundly defeated Democratic hopeful Paul Babbitt in a contest for the U.S. House seat representing the state’s largest — and predominantly Democratic — District 1 (HCN, 10/25/04: Dems stumble in Arizona race). Proposition 200, which passed with Hispanic support, prevents non-citizens from voting and requires proof of legal immigration […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2004: Keepers of the Flame
The Sierra gets ‘a pocket’ for conservation funding
An idea born on the coast moves inland— but can it work in other states?
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
Citizens wary of their nuclear neighbor
Rather than excavating a Cold War-era landfill just outside Albuquerque, Sandia National Laboratories wants to leave the nuclear waste in the ground and “monitor” it indefinitely — and the state of New Mexico has agreed that’s a good idea. From 1959 until 1988, Sandia used the site, now known as the Mixed Waste Landfill, to […]