History is conveniently framed in your story about the conflict over Taos land grants (“Troubled Taos,” HCN, 8/20/12). Nowhere is the King of Spain’s right to grant the land in the first place ever questioned. One cannot argue there is a greater good in returning the land grants to Spanish grantees on the basis of […]
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Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
The great New Mexican juniper massacre
385,000 years: That’s the estimated collective age of old, live junipers illegally cut for firewood between July 2010 and November 2011 on Bureau of Land Management land in northern and central New Mexico. Hardest hit have been the surreally beautiful badlands west of the small town of Cuba, now stippled with freshly sawed tree stumps, […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Only more water will help the Bay Delta
Emily Green’s story, “Tunneling under California’s water wars,” reads as if it were written by Governor Jerry Brown’s office (HCN, 8/20/12). Those who extract water from the Bay Delta want a reliable supply. Unfortunately, that is not possible. We must adapt to a future with less water, not continue to demand more. Merely moving the […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Treadwell can’t have his oil and solve climate change, too
Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell is under the dangerous impression that he can have his cake and eat it too when it comes to Alaska’s non-renewable natural resources (“The U.S. is an ‘Arctic Nation,’ ” HCN, 8/20/12). We all hope for economic recovery, and oil reserves are certainly a fast path to that for Alaska. But […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Home improvement: A review of Sugarhouse
Sugarhouse: Turning the Neighborhood Crack House into Our Home Sweet HomeMatthew Batt258 pages, softcover: $14.95Mariner, 2012. Matthew Batt is a perpetual student, earning his Ph.D. in English from the University of Utah while his wife, Jenae, works — until she finally gets tired of supporting his grad-school habit. “I got home from ‘class’ one night, […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
What about Pebble Mine?
As a recently retired U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist, I’m reassured to know that Alaska Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell appreciates the role of science in protecting the environment (“The U.S. is an ‘Arctic Nation,’ “ HCN, 8/20/12). Many decision-makers don’t. I would have been extremely interested to hear Treadwell’s position on the Pebble Mine proposed for […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Song of loss and redemption: A review of Theft
Theft BK Loren224 pages, softcover: $16.Counterpoint, 2012. Development’s brutal erosion of the landscape is a fact of life in the West. In the hands of lesser writers, it often becomes a cliché — shorthand for the destructive side of human nature and the grief and rage it provokes. Even when tackled by good writers, it […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Grand Canyon floods and native fish
The last time the Colorado River plunged unhindered through the Grand Canyon, swollen by snowmelt to 126,000 cubic-feet per second, was in 1957. Glen Canyon Dam rose soon after, delivering cheap hydropower and reliable water to cities, farms and industry. For native fish, the transformation was debilitating. Most of the river’s sediment — which built […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Pallid’s PR problem
For a large, ancient and extremely endangered species, the pallid sturgeon receives remarkably little respect. The fish is nobody’s poster child. Unlike trout and salmon, it has no real champions among environmental groups; it occasionally gets passing mention, but little direct advocacy, and few are actively engaged in the recovery effort. Pallids spend their entire […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Salvation for our dam nation?
On Washington’s White Salmon River last October 26th, sirens bleated, a man barked, “Fire in the hole!” and a cavity was blasted in the bottom of the 125-foot high Condit Dam. A few suspenseful seconds passed. Then, the reservoir behind the dam erupted through the hole and became a river again, although the water was […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Native plant growers face many challenges
Up at Jerry Benson’s native seed farm in central Washington, during harvest season, workers walk through fields sticking tiny vacuums up into what looks like a crop of bridal veils. Those veils, made out of a tulle-like netting, keep Benson’s precious phlox seeds — which tend to explode out of their seed cases — from […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2012: Pallids in Purgatory
Scientific superheroes
Other researchers investigating new tools and tricks to help suppress invasive cheatgrass: Nancy Shaw, U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Boise, Idaho Shaw’s investigation into new seed-drilling tools could mean the difference between success and failure for many native seeds. She’s been testing a minimum till drill, which reduces soil disturbance, compaction and erosion. Using it, […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Gathering strength from the Continental Divide
The Continental Divide of my childhood rises up the moment I spy the fractured, uplifted horizon formed by the Rocky Mountains. Ahead lies Longs Peak, and the log cabin my family has rented for the summer. Ahead lie weeks full of freedom and possibility. Left behind, so close to Missouri it barely qualifies as Kansas: […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Bloodsuckers in California
THE SOUTHWEST & CALIFORNIA It’s been hot lately. Damned hot. Phoenix, Ariz., Palm Springs, Calif., and other Western torrid zones posted temperatures of more than 100 degrees every day during the first two weeks of August. Death Valley’s high exceeded 115 degrees on 14 out of those 14 days, and on one occasion reached 126 […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Watching land swaps in Idaho and the West
For Western Pacific Timber and its then-President and CEO Tim Blixseth, the spring of 2006 promised big business. The company had recently purchased 39,371 acres in the Clearwater National Forest in the Upper Lochsa, on the Idaho-Montana border. The Lewis and Clark trail winds through here, and the rivers and woods are home to threatened […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
Cracking the ozone code in Utah’s gas fields
Updated 9/4/2012 On a bright February morning, a curiously adorned cargo van crept down a dirt road in northeastern Utah’s Uintah Basin. A steel pole with a jumble of funnels strapped to its tip rose from the roof’s rear, and the vehicle moved so slowly that its speed didn’t even register — a good thing, […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
In rural California, a Liberian family finds an agricultural refuge
On a historic 50-acre ranch in Northern California, Cynnomih Tarlesson and her nine children drop watermelon seeds into the ground. Behind them, her father, Roosevelt, uses a tractor to churn up the dirt for tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant — along with some lesser-known crops, like the Tarlesson-named ‘Billy Goat Pepper,’ from the family’s native West […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Dark days for bovines
WASHINGTON: “It’s all downhill from here, sweetie.” Courtesy Alexis Alloway. COLORADO These are dark days for bovines. In northeastern Colorado, 50 cows keeled over this summer, most likely from anthrax, which thrives during drought. That sad news came on the heels of a grisly spate of livestock mutilations in the western part of the state. […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2012: Identity Politics, Montana Style
The Bay Area Chevron explosion shows gaps in refinery safety
When a crude-processing unit at Chevron’s Richmond, Calif., refinery burst into flame in early August, sirens wailed through local neighborhoods as pillars of smoke blackened the sky over the city and surrounding hillsides. The plant’s emergency management system issued 18,000 calls to nearby residents, urging them to “shelter in place” — closing windows, sealing cracks […]