NEVADA Bob Halstead, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects was sad to see Energy Secretary Steven Chu leaving after four years on the job. Grabbing a garland of verbal images to describe Halstead’s reaction, the Las Vegas Review-Journal said Chu was “a breath of fresh air for Nevada after a string of […]
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Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Economy, distrust complicate allocation of tribal settlement money
When the Obama administration announced in April that it would pay 41 tribes some $1 billion to settle a lawsuit over federal mismanagement of trust funds, many saw it as a sort of stimulus package for Indian Country — a chance to invest in long-term development and infrastructure, such as schools, clinics and roads. “The […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Farmers agree to tax those who deplete groundwater
Amid drought and climate change in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, farmers vote for a new approach to rein in their overpumping of groundwater.
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
My Dakota: A photo essay and conversation
We recommend you select the gallery option to view these images. In 2005, photographer Rebecca Norris Webb decided it was time to head West with her camera. She’d lived in New York City for 15 years, and spent six years working in the cramped interiors of zoos and aquariums for The Glass Between Us, her […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Gun gluttony
WASHINGTON “Seattle’s nice,” says photographer Regina Johnson, “but it isn’t Paradise.” Courtesy Regina Johnson. UTAH AND WYOMING Could Second Amendment defenders have gone too far, even in this gun-loving region? If two calmly reasoned editorials in Utah and Wyoming’s major daily newspapers are right, you’d have to say, yep, looks like it. Editorializing last month, […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
The BLM fights for the Southwest’s last free-flowing river
SIERRA VISTA, ARIZONA “For sale: Prime Office/Retail,” proclaims the sign on a mesquite flat on the outskirts of this affluent city of 47,000 people, about an hour south of Tucson near the Huachuca Mountains. It’s announcing a 2,000-acre project known as Tribute, proposed by California developer Castle and Cooke and approved by city leaders six […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
No more ‘social studies’
I am a Colorado rancher. I subscribe to HCN for the responsible research and reporting its contributors provide on environmental issues affecting the West. (The Dec. 24 feature on energy development in British Columbia is a perfect recent example.) While there is a decidedly liberal view evident in much of what HCN produces, I support […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
A Montanan walks into a Cairo bar: A review of Evel Knievel Days
Evel Knievel DaysPauls Toutonghi293 pages,hardcover: $24.Crown, 2012. Khosi Saqr Clark, the narrator of Pauls Toutonghi’s funny and winsome second novel, Evel Knievel Days, isn’t a typical native of Butte. Sure, he loves Montana and enjoys the annual Evel Knievel Days spectacle, complete with its “American Motordome Wall of Death,” but his neurotic nature (“the obsessive-compulsive’s […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Book review: Quilts: California Bound, California Made 1840-1940
Quilts: California Bound, California Made 1840-1940. Sandi Fox 208 pages, softcover: $40. University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Quilts are cherished both for their warmth and for the memories they hold, so it makes sense that they were among the sparse belongings early immigrants brought with them by horse, wagon, ship or train to California. In […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Reading the Brautigan Bible: A review of Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan
Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard BrautiganWilliam Hjortsberg896 pages,hardcover: $38.Counterpoint Press, 2012. Richard Brautigan grew up in Oregon, convinced he’d be an influential writer. He rose to fame in San Francisco and later split his time between Bolinas, Calif., Livingston, Mont. and Japan. He published 10 poetry books and a dozen novels, including […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Drought forces a new era of agricultural water conservation
This winter, our usually quiet Colorado valley — so quiet that you can hear the wingbeats of the eagles and ravens that pass overhead — has reverberated with the growls of trackhoes digging trenches across hillsides and irrigated pastures. The activity has nothing to do with oil and gas development, though a proposed sale of […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
China v. Utah: Whose air is worse?
Quiz: Utah’s Wasatch Front or Beijing? 1. Which area had the worst air quality in its respective nation during January 2013? 2. Which place prepared for hosting the Olympic games by expanding the public transit network? 3. Which region has real-time air quality data, frequently updated on Twitter? For answers, see the bottom of this page. […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Our loyal readers come through, yet again
The staff had great news to pass on to the High Country News board of directors during our winter board meeting (held in cyberspace) Jan. 25th: Over the holidays, you all sent in a record number of gift subscriptions and Research Fund donations, along with several substantial grants supporting HCN‘s editorial work and the upgrade of […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Sierra Club fights Keystone XL with civil disobedience
In 2004, Carl Pope, then-director of the Sierra Club, tangled publicly with Capt. Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Pope was steering the club towards cooperative solutions to environmental problems, collaborating with large corporations instead of fighting them. Watson, an advocate of direct action whose group blocked environmental despoilers with living bodies […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2013: Farming on the Fringe
Education in the great outdoors
The following comments were posted at hcn.org in response to the Jan. 21 “Learning by Living” special issue. What will sustain the Outward Bound school is real adventure that the students spearhead (HCN, 1/21/13, “Outward (re)Bound“). Not peaks or rivers the instructors want to climb or paddle, but objectives that the students embark upon, fueled […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2013: Making Good on the Badlands
A map collection for time travelers
In 1952, rural Nebraskans encountered an extraordinary sight: an Army chaplain and his 11-year-old nephew zipping around the state in a silver Jaguar convertible. “People in Nebraska never saw such a thing as an open-topped sports car!” Robert Berlo, the nephew, told me last spring from his home in Livermore, Calif. Berlo didn’t inherit his […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Don’t eat the yellow snow
CALIFORNIA It read like one of the sweetest wildlife stories ever — the tale of an orphaned bobcat that was too darned nice. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the affectionate bobcat kitten — known as Chips — was found in the burning Plumas National Forest, a surprising survivor at only a few weeks old. […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2013: Making Good on the Badlands
In the Northwest, innovative projects use trees to cool streams
The wastewater treatment plant in Medford, Ore., removes organic solids, oils and other pollutants from sewer and storm runoff before dumping the water into the Rogue River. Even though the process cleans the water, it’s still polluted with heat. Warm waters hold less oxygen and can provide a dangerous advantage to invasive species. The state […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2013: Making Good on the Badlands
Will the Badlands become the first tribal national park?
Oglala Lakota leaders hope to transform their bombed-out Badlands and help lift the tribe out of poverty, but it won’t be easy.