Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, Arizona skiers may soon be spared the inconvenience of living in one of the Union’s warmest and driest states. Last week the high court removed the final legal hurdle blocking Arizona Snowbowl from making artificial snow with reclaimed sewage effluent on the San Francisco Peaks—a plan which 13 southwestern tribes […]
Blogs
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Landscapes of power
A few miles north of Rock Springs, Wyoming, a big interpretive sign is titled, Landscapes of Power. Yes, the landscapes are powerful: The massive piece of earth that seems just to have awakened and violently ripped itself out of the land up the Green River from Vernal, Utah; or the cloud enveloped Wind River range, […]
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2008 wildfire redux
Recently I had the opportunity to backpack in Northern California’s Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness. The wildflowers were wonderful and among the many birds I got a close up look at a Lazuli Bunting. One day I climbed Black Rock Mountain which provides spectacular 360 degree views – including a view of several of last summer’s […]
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Adobe Town drilldown
The tussle over Adobe Town continues. This spectacular chunk of Wyoming’s Red Desert has been in the sights of energy companies for years (see our story The desert that breaks Annie Proulx’s heart) . But the area has also been designated “Very Rare or Uncommon” by the state, in recognition of its unique geology, fossils, […]
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Government hunters become poachers?
Among the subsidies we taxpayers provide for agriculture, especially stock-raising in the West, is an agency euphemistically called “Wildlife Services,” which sounds like an organization that provides salt licks or improves habitat or something along that line. But it’s the old Animal Damage Control agency under a new name. It has the same […]
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What the FRAC do we know?
Drilling for natural gas really hasn’t been the most natural process. Numerous reports of groundwater contamination have skeptics and homeowners worried over hydraulic fracturing, a process used in nine out of 10 natural gas wells in the U.S. But finally, some proposed legislation to oversee the drilling: Representatives in both the House and the Senate […]
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A woolly problem
Domestic sheep and bighorn sheep don’t mix. Or at least they shouldn’t, say most biologists. The tame sheep tend to infect their wild cousins with fatal pneumonia. In Idaho’s Payette National Forest, the Forest Service has even banned grazing in areas where flocks might encounter bighorns (see our story Sheep v. Sheep). Recent developments have […]
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Unprecedented poaching in California
According to officials at the California Department of Fish and Game, the illegal sale of wildlife and “wildlife parts” generates something like $100 million per year — and it’s going up, as hard economic times have forced the state to cut back on game wardens. Only 230 wardens regulate 159,000 square miles of land, including […]
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Is humanitarian aid really “littering”?
In summer, the southern Arizona desert is among the most merciless environments on earth. Temperatures spike at 120 degrees. Shade is scarce. Each year hundreds of undocumented migrants die trying to walk north from Mexico. The grisly accounts of survivors and the quickly-mummified evidence on the ground suggest that a cooked brain and water-starved sensory neurons […]
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Sunshine and water
The solar-electric generating systems in my area are “photo-voltaic.” When photons from the sun strike certain materials, they give off electrons, which are then channeled to the electric grid. There’s another way to generate electricity from sunshine: Concentrate the solar rays to heat a fluid that in turn boils water, resulting in steam […]
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Whoosh! Down it comes!
I spend a fair amount of time at the HCN office reading online news, and writing blogs like this one. It’s easy, when surrounded by abstractions, to feel a little bit cut off from what makes things work around here in Paonia. One quick antidote to that feeling is to go down to the river on my […]
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No entrance fees
OK, so the Park Service didn’t put out a press release about how they’ll start allowing certain firearms in parks. But thankfully, they put one out about a few fee-free weekends this summer. That’s right, you won’t pay to enter “America’s Best Idea” on these weekends: June 20-21, July 18-19 and August 15-16. U.S. Interior […]
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Mixups over tribal IDs
From Walmart to the U.S.-Canadian border, Indians are encountering problems with their tribal IDs — partly due to new laws which went into effect June 1, partly due to bureaucratic glitches, and partly because of the ongoing failure of the U.S. government to treat Native Americans fairly. HCN reported on this problem in a story […]
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May Bats Prevail
Back in March, I wrote a post about the grisly lawnmower effect wind turbines can have on bats. Well, there’s some good news: a new study conducted by Iberdrola Renewables and independent conservation group Bat Conservation International found that bat death can be reduced by more than 70 percent if the turbines are turned off […]
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Give me your huddled masses…
If America is the land of beckoning opportunity, Mexico is the land of bargain operations — and cheap dental care, and sensibly-priced treatments for chronic illness. At least, that’s what Mexico is to about a million Californians each year. A group of researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles recently added another scuff […]
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Salmon scuffle
If you’ve been following the comment stream on High Country News‘ recent two part series on salmon (“Columbia Basin (Political) Science,” by Steve Hawley, and “Salmon Salvation,” by Ken Olsen), then you know how fired up people can get about fish. That includes, of course, the authors of the articles and the primary agencies involved. […]
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BLM’s unheroic response to civil disobedience
“One day the South will recognize its real heroes.” – Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail In the Alabama of the mid-nineteen sixties, Martin Luther King could see the arc of history bending before him. He knew that the South’s real heroes were people like Rosa Parks, who defied the law because […]
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Adopt a stimulus project
Affirming that “investigative journalism is at risk,” ProPublica began publishing a year ago. A nonprofit newsroom in Manhattan led by Paul Steiger (former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal) and Stephen Engelberg (former managing editor of Portland’s Oregonian and once an investigative reporter at the New York Times), ProPublica is bankrolled by the Sandler […]
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Confessions of a trespasser
My favorite dog-walking trail near town has just undergone another transformation from the federal Bureau of Land Management. A new sign sprouted on a post at its start a few days ago: ROUTE CLOSED. And then, a few days later, the post and sign were gone. Before March of this year, it was […]
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False Claims Virus on the loose!
All humans like to believe their community, region or country is special. This has led to countless specious claims to greatness based on size: the tallest flag pole, the deepest canyon, the highest waterfall, the oldest building….and so forth. Some of these claims are, of course, true; but the vast majority of them are not. […]