‘I know something about black holes now—because there was one inside of him.’
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Yellowstone grazing allotments
Updated March 24, 2008 Stephen Gordon lost more cattle to grizzly and wolves than any other rancher in his neck of the woods. In the 20 years that he ran his Diamond G Ranch herd on the Dunoir federal grazing allotment just east of Grand Teton National Park, predators killed between 200 and 250 calves. […]
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The Longest Walk 2
On a chilly day in March, two dozen weary walkers are resting at the Ute Indian Museum in Montrose. In the shadow of western Colorado’s Shining Mountains, surrounded by relics of the tribe who once inhabited the area, the group is taking a two-day break on its five-month journey from California’s Alcatraz Island to the […]
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Tribe takes on toxic waste
On the Navajo Reservation, abandoned uranium mines and other toxic waste sites now stand a much better chance of remediation: The Navajo Nation Council just passed one of the most comprehensive toxic waste laws in Indian country. The Navajo Nation Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act became law in March. This sweeping legislation gives […]
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Primer 2: Energy
For more than a century, the Interior West has been the nation’s domestic energy supplier. Factories and power plants across the country have long made use of the abundant, high-quality coal reserves in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Utah. After World War II, the fledgling nuclear power industry created a rush for the region’s uranium deposits. […]
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Guarding Galisteo
As oil and gas companies sink more drills into Western soil, landowners often find themselves at the mercy of corporations and industry-friendly federal law. Citizens of Santa Fe County, N.M., however, are pushing the limits of local control and demanding a seat at the table. In Galisteo Basin, south of tony Santa Fe, ranchers and […]
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Dems reach out to Native Americans
Women and African-Americans aren’t the only demographics receiving extra attention from Democrats this year. The party has also been reaching out to Native Americans. “In the past, Native American voters have been ignored, or thought of in the last minute,” says Laura Harris of the Comanche Tribe. “What (Democratic National Committee Chairman) Howard Dean has […]
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From poo to power
Poop. That’s what powers Bartertown, the violent setting of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the 1985 post-apocalyptic movie. Beneath the crime-ridden city, one man controls the seething, stinky pig-manure pit from which electricity is generated — and he can shut off the power at will. Fortunately, that’s not the pattern for biofuel these days. Instead, the […]
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Slideshow: Crossing the ‘Berlin Wall’ for wildlife
The bridge, now in the design phase, would be Colorado’s first, but construction depends on securing the $4 million-$8 million needed for the project. Photographs courtesy of Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project, Digital Animation Services, Sloan Shoemaker
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Agency probes wolf-baiting claims
Already stained by the blood of dead wolves and suffering from a variety of other setbacks, the program to reintroduce endangered Mexican gray wolves to the Southwest is now at the center of two criminal investigations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is formally looking into the disappearance of two wolves in New Mexico and […]
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Lakeside City
“I feel like a lakeside city.” She said this as she lay under the worn sheets of my bed and stared out the window. It was hot and if you were still and watched closely, you could see the pavement melt outside. Telephone wires crisscrossed the pale blue sky, the sun was high, and splotches […]
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Sheep station to explore environmental hoofprint
For nearly a century, the Department of Agriculture’s Sheep Experiment Station has grazed over 6,000 sheep on 100,000 acres of public land in Montana and Idaho west of Yellowstone National Park. Yet the research center has never formally assessed its ecological impact on this mountainous habitat for native wildlife species. This month, in response to […]
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Go blue, save some green
The mountain pine beetle is about the size of Lincoln’s head on a penny. In the last 10 years, it’s devastated 1.5 million acres of lodgepole pine in Colorado, a half-million in the past year alone. The swaths of dead trees color the mountainsides a sickly orange-brown. Now, communities in the hardest-hit areas are scrambling […]
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Crying ‘fowl’
Over the past 5 years, one of the West’s emblematic birds, the greater sage grouse, has been batted like a shuttlecock between environmentalists and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. At issue is whether the chicken-sized bird, once found in sagebrush plains from Canada to Arizona, should be listed as threatened or endangered. If the […]
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Primer 1: Politics
From the outside – and even for many in the West – the West’s politics are usually seen as swaths of unbroken primary colors. The coast is blue (which in today’s color coding means Democratic) and the interior is Republican red, dotted here and there with liberal bastions such as Aspen, Boulder and Santa Fe. […]
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Mining reform has one foot in the door
For only the second time in 136 years, Congress is nearly unanimous in its call to update the 19th century law that still governs the country’s metal ore mining. “There’s a pretty broad sentiment in both parties and both houses that the mining law of 1872 needs to be reformed,” says Luke Popovich of the […]
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The fur is flying
Michael Moss’ 64-acre goat ranch sits on the edge of BLM land in southwestern Oregon. It’s “healthy cougar country,” he says, and he’d like it to stay that way. That’s not something you’d expect to hear from most livestock owners, but Moss is a member of Goat Ranchers of Oregon, a group that advocates smart […]
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Relicensing dams hangs on warm water, endangered fish
Cooler water. And endangered fish. These are two of the hurdles that stand between Idaho Power Co. and new federal licenses to operate the three dams on the Snake River known as the Hells Canyon complex. For more than four years, Idaho Power has been trying to obtain the water-pollution permits it needs for relicensing. […]
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The Appeal Deal
The West’s national forests remain in legal limbo. For four years, the U.S. Forest Service has been trying to overhaul the rules that govern the creation of forest plans, the “blueprints” that describe how each forest will be managed and protected. And for the past two years, the process has been locked in federal court. […]
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The Year of Ignorance about the West
This was supposed to be “the year of the West” in national politics. States that had been reliably Republican were suddenly competitive. Two Westerners — Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Republican, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat — were credible candidates for the presidency. The Democrats are holding their national convention in Denver […]