During President Bush’s 2000 election campaign, he promised that any decision about whether to store high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would be based on “sound science.” Now, his administration seems to be junking science altogether. In August, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it will cut the U.S. Geological Survey’s budget […]
News
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Boulder gets the gas-drilling blues
Energy companies are drilling holes straight through efforts to preserve open space on Colorado’s Front Range. Boulder County has saved about 76,000 acres from development by buying property and creating conservation easements. However, the county doesn’t always control the mineral rights underneath that land — which leaves the surface property open to drilling. Previous landowners […]
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
A smart-growth bulldog
Albuquerque city councilman goes head-to-head with the incumbent mayor, and the developers who have long ruled here
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Methamphetamine fuels the West’s oil and gas boom
Long the drug of choice for rural down-and-out youth, crank becomes commonplace among drill-rig roughnecks.
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Strange bedfellows make a grazing deal in Idaho
And influential Sen. Larry Craig is odd man out
Posted inOctober 3, 2005: Out of the Four Corners
Contaminated water can’t stop California sprawl
Rocket fuel ingredient and other pollutants now commonplace in groundwater
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Conservative legislator takes on Wal-Mart
Bruce Newcomb, the powerful Republican speaker of Idaho’s House of Representatives, has a radical idea for the conservative, business-friendly state: He’s threatening to draft a law that would require Wal-Mart to either provide health insurance for its Idaho employees, or pay the state for providing coverage through the Medicaid program. Around the country, several studies […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
The Latest Bounce
If a protected tree falls in an Oregon national forest, the Forest Service makes a sound — oops. The agency accidentally included about 15 acres of a designated botanical area when it marked the boundaries of the Fiddler timber sale, part of the controversial Biscuit Fire salvage project (HCN, 5/16/05: Unsalvageable). Loggers cut nearly 300 […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Western military bases still reporting for duty
New Mexico’s Cannon Air Force Base won’t be shut down — at least not for the next few years (HCN, 8/22/05: Leavin’ on a Jet Plane). It and four other Western military installations narrowly escaped the base-closure ax. The nine-member federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission finished its hearings on Aug. 26, voting against […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Judge leaves Front Range cities mile-high and dry
For more than 20 years, a private company has wanted to move water from Colorado’s Western Slope to sprawling Front Range cities hundreds of miles to the east. Now, a judge has put a kink in those transmountain water diversion plans. In 1984, a state water court granted Natural Energy Resources Company conditional rights to […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Agency slashes critical habitat for salmon
Salmon-lovers think there’s something fishy about a recent NOAA Fisheries’ decision to strip protection from four-fifths of the salmon’s designated critical habitat. The change eases the way for development along 134,200 miles of previously off-limits rivers and streams. The agency says that the habitat’s biological importance to salmon is outweighed by the potential economic gain […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
Revealed — secret changes to park rules
Critics say the Bush administration is again subverting the public process
Posted inSeptember 19, 2005: Squeezing Water from a Stone
In the orchards, questions about immigration reform
Washington state offers a cautionary tale for would-be reformers in Washington, D.C.
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
Judge rejects old-growth forest rollbacks
A federal judge in Seattle has rejected the Bush administration’s elimination of the Northwest Forest Plan’s “survey and manage” rules. The rules required government agencies to survey for hundreds of rare species in the Pacific Northwest’s old-growth forests, logging only where those species wouldn’t be disturbed. In August, Judge Marsha Pechman sided with conservationists, saying […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
Lawsuit spurs endangered species reviews
Dozens of endangered species are finally getting their five-year checkups. But some property-rights proponents want even more done. In July, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began working through its backlog of five-year reviews for flora and fauna protected by the Endangered Species Act. The mandatory reviews assess the health of a species, and can […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
The harder they spawn, the quicker they die
After three years of stocking efforts — and an unusually wet start to 2005 — silvery minnows had a good run this spring in the Middle Rio Grande. Now, as the river recedes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that more of the endangered fish can legally be allowed to die. Biologists found millions […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
The Latest Bounce
The tide may be turning in California’s fight to keep drill rigs away from its shores (HCN, 6/23/03: Will offshore be off-limits?). On Aug. 11, the nine members of the California Coastal Commission unanimously rejected the federal government’s attempts to renew 36 oil and gas leases off the Southern California coast. Two days later, a […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
Atlas of Pacific Salmon
Atlas of Pacific Salmon Xanthippe Augerot 150 pages, hardcover: $34.95 University of California Press and State of the Salmon, 2005. As far-ranging as the salmon itself, this book examines the state of Oncorhynchus species on both sides of the North Pacific. Packed with colorful maps, photos and graphics, the work is science-based but readable and […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
Pollution for jobs: a fair trade?
Navajos consider benefits — and drawbacks — of a new power plant
Posted inSeptember 5, 2005: Rangeland Revival
The Snake River, unplugged
Salmon-killing dams may amount to ‘takings’ of tribal fishing rights