As the debate rages on over border fence construction and the environmental and population impacts of immigration, a report released yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center showed a marked decrease in Mexican migrants entering the U.S. Migration rates into the U.S. from Mexico dropped almost 40 percent between 2006 and 2009, while migration back to […]
Blogs
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Uranium tangle, two years later
It’s all about the water. More to the point, it’s about Jackie Adolph’s belief that everyone in Colorado has a right to clean water. “Why would we not?” she asked. Since 2007, Adolph and fellow members of Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction, or CARD, have been doggedly defending that right, which they say is endangered by […]
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Twilight bites into Forks
Forks, Wash., just isn’t what it used to be. I have fond memories of the once-sleepy little town. When I was a child, my family would camp out on the Pacific Coast and then make a leisurely stop in Forks to eat and shower. Restaurants like Sully’s Drive-In and the Smokehouse have been around forever. […]
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Navajo Nation passes green jobs legislation, 62-1
Some 50 Navajos — including elders and youth and those in-between — donned green shirts today and filled the chambers of the Navajo Nation Council to promote legislation designed to transform the reservation’s mineral and fossil fuel-based economy into a sustainable, community-based, green system. The show of support paid off: The Council passed the legislation […]
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A dismal future for tourism?
Back in 1997, I ventured to Boulder for a conference about tourism put on by the Center of the American West. Easily the most provocative speaker was the late Hal Rothman, professor of history at the University of Las Vegas. It’s easy to bash Vegas as a greedy place of contrived attractions, he […]
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Fossil Creek fracas
A few hours northeast of the 110-degree concrete jungle of Phoenix, Ariz., a powerful, cool creek courses through a lush oasis, creating blue-green swimming pools and dramatic waterfalls for campers and day-hikers. But lack of funding for a Forest Service management plan has allowed Fossil Creek to become a refuge for drug and alcohol use, […]
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WOPR goes down in flames
In a development applauded by environmental interests and even some Oregon politicians, the US Department of Interior announced on July 16th that it would withdraw the proposed Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) because it “is legally indefensible.” The WOPR was part of a suite of efforts by the Bush Administration to weaken protections for the […]
Posted inRay
A farmer’s wilderness deal
I followed a log truck on a dirt road, breathing the dust it churned up — heading to the RY Timber mill in Townsend, Montana, last Friday. The truck stopped on the scales by the mill to have its load weighed. I kept going only a few more yards to strangest-ever press conference for a […]
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A dam marvel
Hundreds of feet above the Black Canyon’s raging Colorado River, the longest concrete arch in the Western Hemisphere is almost complete. In a month workers will finish construction on the arch support of the Hoover Dam Bypass bridge, open to the public in fall 2010. The new 4-lane bridge, on Highway 93, will replace the […]
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Wild horses gone wild
In 1971, Congress made the iconic status of wild horses a matter of law. That year they declared “that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West …” Wild horses “enrich” our lives, they continued, and “are fast disappearing from the American scene.” Today, not so […]
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“Organic mecca” organizes against GMO sugar beets
The Boulder Daily Camera calls them “organic industry heavyweights.” And they’re out to make sure Boulder County Commissioners disallow the request of six area farmers to grow Roundup Ready sugar beets on open space land. Not because of the scientific and economic arguments against GMOs — enumerated later — but because it may besmirch the […]
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Not out of the woods
History is rife with artists who were underappreciated in their time: Vincent van Gogh, Johann Sebastian Bach, Emily Dickinson, etc. Christo and Jeanne-Claude, whose elaborate outdoor art installations include “The Gates” in Central Park and “The Umbrellas” in California and Japan, are not those kind of artists. While their works are usually met with some kind […]
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Numbers for the Birds
My experience with bird-watching is generally limited to trying to answer the question of “What did the cat leave in the yard this time?” And sometimes I’ve pulled over to watch eagles eating roadkill. But I do not recall ever driving out of my way to see a pelican or a ptarmigan. […]
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Food fight
Who knew ordering a steak dinner could be so political? The American food industry is undergoing some major policy changes, challenging ranchers and farmers across the West. Oregon cattle ranchers are struggling to deal with the recession, increasingly health-conscious consumers, and environmental concerns about land use . Fears over food safety have led to a […]
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NW Renewables: Infrastructure needed
By Sharon Fisher, NewWest.Net Guest Writer, 7-14-09 The Northwest—Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana—is arguably the riches region of the United States for renewable energy resources such as geothermal, hydro, wind, and solar, said Paul Manson, president of Seabreeze Power Corp., speaking at the Pacific Northwest Economic Region conference today (with a windmill pin on his […]
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Species viability on national forests preserved!
Yet another attempt by the Bush Administration to change federal regulations in order to accelerate logging on the national forests has apparently gone down in flames. On the last day of June a federal judge in Oakland overturned regulations the Bush Administration crafted in order to gut a provision of the National Forest Management Act. […]
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Pre-season politics
“No matter how Diane Denish spins it, isn’t it still the same game?” That’s the question—posed in a familiar, cynical tone—that kicked-off New Mexico’s election season this week. Unfortunately for New Mexicans who hadn’t quite recovered from last year’s ad wars, the ominous narrators of political advertising are already back to haunt the Land of […]
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Enviro infighting on forest deal
When I researched my new High Country News story on bold experiments emerging in national forests, I talked to a bunch of people whom I couldn’t fit into the magazine story. That’s a drawback of magazines — the pages are not infinite the way the Web is. So I’m going to use my blog to […]
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Still stuck in traffic
Los Angeles commuters don’t so much drive to work as creep—slowly, very slowly. So slowly, in fact, that each L.A. driver wasted an average 70 hours stuck in traffic in 2007, which was actually a slight improvement over the 72 hours they squandered in 2006, according to a study released last week by the Texas […]
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Brewer’s budget battle
A week into the 2010 fiscal year in Arizona, the state’s budget is $2.1 billion in the red, worrying Tucson officials and others about committing money and jobs. In the past six months since Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer stepped up to fill former Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano’s post, the state has been embroiled […]