Sometimes old ideas become new ideas. On July 9, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter announced plans to seek federal funding to study a high-speed rail corridor from Denver south through New Mexico to El Paso, Texas. Take out the “high-speed” part of it, and you’ve got the dream of Gen. William Jackson Palmer […]
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Will money talk?
It’s a sweet-voiced, normal-looking middle-aged woman who looks sincerely at the camera and tells us that she’s one of millions of Californians who want to pay taxes on marijuana, legalizing her drug of choice and helping to refill the state’s empty coffers (the taxes could fund 20,000 teacher salaries, she says). This is an ad […]
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Duwamish not dead
Next week, Cecile Hansen, a direct descendant of Seattle’s namesake Chief Sealth, will travel from one Washington to another. Hansen, the chairwoman of the Duwamish tribe, has been invited to testify in D.C. at an upcoming hearing on H.R. 2678, a bill introduced in the House that would grant the Western Washington tribe the federal […]
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6,000 years without enviro laws
See, we need to mine uranium because there were no environmental laws around 6,000 years ago, when the earth was created. At least I think that’s what Arizona State Sen. Sylvia Allen, R, is saying in this video clip. Huh?
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Condor quandary
A prominent group of biologists and scientists is strongly criticizing conservation plans for Tejon Ranch, a 270,000-acre property north of LA. The ranch is slated for 30,000 acres of housing, industrial and resort projects — which will sprawl across roughly 20,000 acres of critical habitat for the endangered California condor. Tejon’s developers have asked the […]
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Roughing it the easy way
Summer is officially upon us and for many that means camping, often in the company of family or friends. This summer is an especially good time to get outside to spend a few nights under the stars, sing off-key by the campfire and roast all manner of food on a stick, because the National Park […]
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Blue horses: riding on moonlight
I step out of my shack beneath a waxing half moon. Milky light pours down on northern Arizona. Scattered ponderosas march across the bunchgrasses of Government Prairie, casting oval shadows to the west of each tree. As usual, my walk takes me along the fence line. A cloud shutters the moon. Across the barb-wire, two huge silhouettes emerge […]
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The glorious Fourth
Like hundreds of small towns around the West, Paonia will celebrate the Fourth of July with a parade down the main drag (Grand Avenue, in our case) and festivities in the park. It’s the annual Cherry Days event, some 62 years old, awash in tradition and punctuated by occasional sparks of innovation. There will be […]
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Three strikes for the Forest Service
Yesterday, a federal judge once again struck down an attempt to revise the rules governing national forest planning (see our story “The End of Analysis Paralysis“). Environmentalists had filed suit, charging that the changes would weaken protections for wildlife (by getting rid of the viability requirement) and exempt national forest plans from formal review under […]
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Alternative alternative energy in the West
The West’s renewable energy resources — especially the wind, solar and geothermal energy concentrated on our vast public lands — are in the limelight a lot these days. With that in mind, HCN put together this summer’s special issue around the concept of alternative alternative energy — as in, not just those big solar and […]
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Catch a falling drop
Who owns the rain? In Colorado, you generally didn’t have any right to use the rain that fell on your property. But that’s changing, as the New York Times explained in a recent article. Now some property owners will be able to use rain barrels legally. Colorado’s water laws are arcane […]
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Wilderness Dedux
During the eight years of the Bush Administration a number of bills which included designating wilderness in the West were passed by Congress, signed by President Bush and became law. Most mainstream national and regional environmental organizations praised them as great victories. A few long-time activists, including this blogger, raised an alarm. Grassroots activists’ concerns […]
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Fracking, fracing or fraccing?
Most of us have heard of “hydraulic fracturing.” It’s a way to get fluids out of the ground by drilling a well, then pumping liquid under pressure down the hole. The liquid fractures nearby rocks, thereby releasing a substance (generally natural gas these days) that has been trapped in the rocks. “Hydraulic fracturing” […]
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Kitten caboodle
After two kittenless years, Colorado’s Canada lynx are breeding successfully again. The Colorado Division of Wildlife, which has reintroduced 218 of the large-pawed cats to the state over the past decade, located 10 new lynx kittens during their annual spring survey this year. That total includes two dens of kittens whose parents are native to […]
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Mountain people
Let’s start with this: mountain people do not curse the weather. They have slept out in the rain and know that the weather will change. They know that just to be around—under any sort of sky—is good luck enough. Mountain people have crooked grins and broken hearts and dirt under their fingernails. They are unimpressed […]
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Off-road clampdown in the West
We all know that irresponsible off-road vehicle use causes major damage to public lands. The June 8 HCN contained a story about Western states passing laws to more strongly regulate offroaders (“States rev up ORV rules“). KUNC’s Kirk Siegler recently interviewed associate editor Jodi Peterson about that story, focusing on the new laws and the […]
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Beaver and restoration – the rest of the story
The June 8th HCN edition included an excellent article on the potential for beaver to restore western watersheds and, in the process, improve water supplies. The piece, however, omitted a few important caveats: The movement to make a partnership with the Beaver People in order to restore western watersheds is welcome. But it is not […]
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Airports killing wildlife to prevent accidents
Today reports from two far-flung airports illustrate the ongoing conflict between modern human culture and animals simply doing what they do. In New York City — five months after Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger safely landed a US Airways jet in the Hudson River after hitting a flock of geese — some 2,000 Canadian geese living around […]
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What dreams shale come
Yesterday I read, “What every westerner should know about oil shale,” a report published last week by the University of Colorado’s Center of the American West. It left my ears ringing with a sort of dull reverberation that, while it lasted, actually seemed to be getting louder. I think that ringing sound had something to […]
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Going it alone
It’s fairly common knowledge that the poor, though they’ve released far less than their share of the world’s greenhouse gasses, will feel the nastiest effects of climate change. Usually, we take “the poor,” in this case, to mean residents of Tuvalu, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea or other developing states whose governments lack the resources or […]