High Country News – Know the West

Brian Moore has retrofitted his house in Phoenix, Ariz., to enable him to re-use water and live more sustainably

Hilary Watts Jan. 23, 2006 From the print edition

Judge leaves Front Range cities mile-high and dry

A Colorado judge cancels the water right of a private company that had planned to build the state’s largest dam and use it to pipe water from the Western Slope to the cities of Denver and Colorado Springs

Hilary Watts Sept. 19, 2005 From the print edition

Super-sized dam could be a cash register for California farmers

The Bureau of Reclamation has agreed to deliver more water to California’s Central Valley Project than it actually has, and is considering raising Shasta Dam to provide it

Hilary Watts Aug. 22, 2005 From the print edition

Crazy like a fox, or a fish, or a bat...

In The Back Road to Crazy, Jennifer Bove gathers the true-life adventure stories of 25 wildlife biologists

Hilary Watts Aug. 8, 2005 From the print edition

Suburbia blasts through a national monument

A rocky western escarpment and the Petroglyph National Monument have long held back Albuquerque’s sprawl, but now the Volcano Heights development is coming, and a controversial road through the monument may be built

Hilary watts June 27, 2005 From the print edition

Former refuge manager takes heat for saving frogs

Wayne Shifflett, former manager of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona, was charged with illegally moving a small population of imperiled Chiricahua leopard frog tadpoles, in order to save their lives when drought threatened their habitat.

Hilary Watts May 16, 2005 From the print edition

Blades, birds and bats: Wind energy and wildlife not a cut-and-dried issue

Wind farms are working to make their turbines less hazardous to birds and bats

Hilary Watts May 2, 2005 From the print edition

Farmers and ranchers say city is stealing water

In New Mexico, Alamogordo’s plan to build a desalinization plant and tap the Tularosa Basin aquifer has area ranchers and farmers worried

Hilary Watts April 18, 2005 From the print edition

Climate model may help farmers know what to grow

A high-tech climate model will give farmers in Washington’s Yakima Valley a kind of crystal ball for predicting weather, choosing which crops to plant, and dealing with drought and global warming

Hilary Watts April 18, 2005 From the print edition

Rock jocks fight a mining company

Resolution Copper Company is trying to obtain a land swap in order to mine at Arizona’s Oak Flat campground, a popular rock-climbing spot

Hilary Watts April 4, 2005 From the print edition

Indian tribe to share refuge with feds

The Nisqually Tribe will share management of recently purchased land in Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in Washington with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Hilary Watts March 21, 2005 From the print edition

Is Preble's just another meadow mouse?

The Fish and Wildlife Service wants to delist the threatened Preble’s meadow jumping mouse, on the grounds that the animal is genetically identical to a more common species

Hilary Watts March 7, 2005 From the print edition

Coal company takes refuge in a blind spot

Environmentalists on both sides of the border are up in arms over a Canadian coal company’s plans for an open-pit mine north of Montana’s Glacier National Park

Hilary Watts Feb. 21, 2005 From the print edition

Locals flush proposed kitty litter mine

A recent court ruling denying a proposed cat-litter mine in Nevada’s Washoe County could give local communities more control over mining projects on federal land.

Hilary Watts Feb. 7, 2005 From the print edition

Dear friends

New interns Julie McCord and Hilary Watts; feisty HCN board meeting in Boulder; corrections

J.M. McCord, Hilary Watts, Greg Hanscom Jan. 7, 2005 From the print edition

Items by Hilary Watts

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