Last week, attorneys for the state of Utah joined the fray against nuclear-waste disposal company EnergySolutions by filing an appeal against a ruling that would allow the company to import foreign nuclear waste to the state. EnergySolutions, a Salt Lake City-based company that disposes of low-level radioactive waste from other states, has been in talks to import up […]
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Posted inRange
Ray Ring’s “Affirmative actions”
In his recent HCN report “Affirmative Actions” (August 17 edition), Ray Ring makes this statement: Obama’s array of appointees mirrors the percentages of blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans in our society. More than anything, these three controversial appointments highlight the (environmental) movement’s chronic failure to recruit minorities into its top echelon. Over almost 40 years […]
Posted inRange
Big Horn Betrayal
By Allen M. Jones, NewWest.Net Guest Writer, 8-31-09 I like to hunt, and I like to fish, and I like to do them in good conscience. This means, first and foremost, that I do my best to obey the rule of law, toe the line in the interests of, among other things, preserving the resource. […]
Posted inGoat
Hunters become the hunted
Yesterday, on the opening day of Idaho’s first wolf season in decades, at least two hunters made quick use of their recently purchased wolf tags. The hunt began amidst whirling debate, after Montana Federal Judge Donald W. Molloy delayed ruling on a lawsuit brought by 13 environmental groups to halt the hunt. Concerned that the […]
Posted inRange
Thunderstorm in late August
It slid into the Deer Lodge Valley, like twilight come too soon. When the storm first crossed the horizon I was up on the National Forest, rattling the four-wheeler along a rough two-track road that climbed through a series of meadows toward the Continental Divide. Around here, summer storms are mostly predictable. This particular weather […]
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State Parks Spread the Wealth
The Road-Warrior anarchy that may await some state parks in the West (see “Lawless Future” in this week’s issue) if funding cutbacks close park gates may not have much of an impact on overall state revenues. Despite what many good-hearted park defenders argue, state parks don’t rake in piles of cash. Only 13 of California’s sexiest state […]
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo: Pronghorns in Montana
This week’s reader photo comes from Madrid Miner, who’s been posting some lovely shots up on the HCN Flickr group. You can add your photos to our Flickr group; we pick one a week to feature on our site.
Posted inGoat
The River Dry
If we keep sucking down Colorado River water the way we have been (likely), and if climate change reduces the amount of water in the system (also likely) there’s a fifty-fifty chance that the system’s reservoirs will hit bottom by the middle of this century. That’s the stark conclusion of a new study released in […]
Posted inGoat
Today’s best fire pics
This morning, the fires continue to burn in California, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and elsewhere. And the haunting yet beautiful fire photos continue to make their way into the Intertubes so that those of us who are lucky enough to be far away from the fires can experience them vicariously, and safely. The L.A. Times probably […]
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Summer’s almost over (and fire season is here)
Yowch. It’s hot out and it’s dry and it’s smoky. Often, in this part of Colorado, the end of August marks the tail end of the wet monsoon season. This year, the monsoons were rather feeble, if they arrived at all, and during the last two weeks we’ve experienced some of our hottest days of […]
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Eenie meenie (money) moe
In this era of hyped-up security concerns about our southern border, why would a remote Montana border station with a daily average of three travelers get $15 million of stimulus money? Montana Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus say it’s because they asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to fund projects in their state, whose […]
Posted inRange
When a step aside was ‘a godsend’
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy jumped into American Indian issues with zeal after his brother, Bobby, was assassinated. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy had used the Indian Education Subcommittee as his platform during his extensive travels across Indian Country with the anti-poverty tour. A young Ted Kennedy wrote in Look Magazine that RFK “saw, as I have […]
Posted inGoat
Funding to fight domestic violence
In recent weeks, the Obama administration has made safety on Indian reservations a major priority, doling out a slew of grants to tribes all over the West. “The Department of Justice is well aware that Indian Country is struggling with complex law enforcement issues involving violent crime, violence against women and crimes against children, and […]
Posted inRange
Still Trout Fishing in America
I catch fish with my hands. In the Wyoming Rockies, where I have spent my best summers, the high meadow streams are thick with brookies, cutthroats and rainbows. I hide behind willows and boulders, spying, greedy to catch, kill and eat them. The fish hang suspended in liquid moments then shear off like startled birds, crowding […]
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Down and out
Joe Griego hasn’t worked in nine months. He hasn’t been able to do much since a bull crushed his ribs and damaged his spinal cord while he was on the clock at a New Mexico dairy. He hasn’t been sitting around milking workers’ compensation checks while he recovers, either. In fact, Griego’s had little help […]
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Milk: It doesn’t always do a body good
If you haven’t read Rebecca Clarren’s excellent HCN cover story on the West’s immigrant dairy workers and the on-the-job dangers they face, do it now! If you have read it and want to learn more, you should check out the story’s hefty (and heavy) sidebar: A comprehensive list of deaths and injuries in the West’s […]
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Fighting the fire
“A healthy, fit firefighter is a safe firefighter.” This is what Stan Palmer, a member of the Northwest Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Safety and Health Working Team tells me when I ask about firefighter fatalities (See the related infographic on the top five causes of firefighter deaths since 1910). Over the years, firefighters in the West […]
Posted inGoat
Pot season in the parks
High Country News reported this phenomenon four years ago, in a piece by Adam Burke called The Public Lands’ Big Cash Crop. But this year the story is making big headlines around the West as huge gardens of marijuana are discovered and destroyed on public land from California to Colorado. The Denver Post reported today […]
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Classroom innovation
In eastern Idaho, one small rural school recently gained international fame. In late July, the Teton Valley Community School of Victor, Idaho, was recognized as one of eight finalists in the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom. The competition, sponsored by Architecture for Humanity, received 400 submissions from 65 countries. Finalists included two other U.S. teams […]
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Nestle water plan approved
Last week, Nestle received approval to tap mountain spring water and haul it to Denver for bottling and distribution under its Arrowhead label. The approval came from a unanimous board of Chaffee County Commissioners, following months of deliberations and lengthy hearings. Chaffee County, with about 15,000 residents, sits along the Arkansas River in central Colorado. […]