KERN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA From the “Petroleum Highway” — a rutted, dusty stretch of California State Route 33 — you can see the jostling armies of two giant industries. To the east, relentless rows of almonds and pistachios march to the horizon. To the west, an armada of oil wells sweeps to the foothills of the […]
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Posted inDecember 20, 2010: California Dreamin'
Carl Sagan is rolling in his grave
Just what we need: HCN endorsing pseudoscience (HCN, 11/22/10). Sam Western exhibits a pathetic lack of critical reasoning in his puff piece about Vern Bandy’s supposed dowsing abilities. Bandy’s claim to have accurately dowsed thousands of wells is apparently supported only by his own records. As the son of a well-driller, it is hardly surprising […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2010: California Dreamin'
An uncomfortable truth
Jen Jackson’s report describes a society that wants service industry workers and others to provide us with services we wouldn’t dream of living without (HCN, 11/22/10). But when those workers’ low-wage jobs don’t allow them to purchase or rent “acceptable” or “conventional” housing, we shun them as neighbors. We don’t want to be confronted with […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2010: California Dreamin'
Seeing is believing
My husband, Ron, has the same kind of dowsing ability described in your profile of Vern Bandy (HCN, 11/22/10). His grandfather “witched” with a fork from a peach tree. Ron purchased a metal rod and has used it a number of times. He was project manager on the remodel of the senior center in Lake […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2010: California Dreamin'
Reclamation reality check
The artist’s rendering of the post-reclamation Rosemont Copper Mine shows a striking difference in landforms between the graded mine-waste pile and the surrounding undisturbed terrain (HCN, 11/22/10). Particularly noticeable is the difference in what geomorphologists call drainage density, or the total length of drainage channels per acre. The unvarying slopes and rock rundowns in the […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Farming’s Toxic Legacy
Banned ag chemicals linger in neighborhoods that swallowed up former farms and orchards
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Debating Preservation in the Southwest’s Spanish Missions
TUCSON, ARIZONA The temperature drops dramatically as you step through tall church doors into the cavernous interior. The ancient five-foot-thick walls have the dignity of living ruins. Where plaster is missing, you can see graying adobe bricks, and the painted decorations on the whitewashed walls have faded. Yet the Tumacácori mission still seems to breathe, […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Cheaters and cheatgrass
THE WEST Everybody hates cheatgrass, though it must be admitted that the fluttery plant with the prickly seeds succeeds on sagebrush lands like nobody’s business. A Eurasian invader, it pops up in the spring before native plants do, spreads like wildfire — and burns like wildfire, too. As Wyoming Wildlife magazine put it, cheatgrass “simply […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
The supposedly protected Wyoming Range faces new energy development
Legacy energy leases remain in prime hunting lands
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Reed between the lines
Regarding the commercialization of Arundo donax (giant reed) in Oregon: This is not an ideal approach to biomass production (HCN, 11/8/10). This huge invasive “grass” causes millions of dollars in damage to river systems here in California and elsewhere. Many conservationists and resource managers are extremely cautious about promoting the expansion of something that is […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Seven months of solitude
Breaking into the BackcountrySteve Edwards192 pages, softcover: $16.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2010. “In the seven months I spent in the backcountry, in relative solitude, I rarely felt as alone as I do sitting at this table,” writes Steve Edwards, describing his return to the family dining room after a lengthy sojourn by Oregon’s Rogue River. […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Room for everyone
On this sunny spring Saturday, everyone has the same idea — to soak in the hot pools at the edge of the Mojave. So when the hikers come around the bend, my heart goes out to them. I see their crests fall, their ultra-light packs get heavier. They stop and check their maps to see […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Just say ‘no’ to Dr. No
My thanks to Arnold Hamilton, Denver Nicks and Ray Ring for having the journalistic guts to call out two of the most inept and unproductive members of that elite legislative body derisively referred to as the “Dead Poets Society” (HCN, 11/8/10). Even in a body where incompetence is the expectation and the norm, I can […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
There’s always something in the water
Hal Walter’s recent Writers on the Range essay “There’s Something in the Water” (HCN, 11/8/10) highlights a concern shared by every water-quality professional in the Rocky Mountain West: the presumption of safety. As a member of the Colorado Water Quality Association Board of Directors and a certified water specialist, I can unequivocally state that few […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Poetry in motion
I was walking down the sidewalk the other day, talking to myself, when I heard a person come up behind me, making the kind of polite noises that a person makes so as not to startle the person ahead into doing something violent. It was a young coworker. We smiled and chatted and I explained […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Backyard poisons?
This is a sidebar to the feature story, Pesticides from Old Farmland Leave Toxic Legacy. Amanda Ryder and her family live two blocks from Robertson Elementary, one of many Yakima schools that required cleanup due to the high levels of lead and arsenic in its soil. The orchard that contaminated the school’s playground once extended […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
How to Play Safely in the Soil
A few suggestions to dramatically reduce exposure to possible contaminants — without breaking the bank
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
A visit to a ghost town in San Francisco Bay
The course of time and tide
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
All hopped up
Chinook, Magnum and American Fuggle — these are just some of the Pacific Northwest’s many organic hop varieties. But despite rapid growth in organic craft beer production, they’re hardly flying off the shelves. That’s because, until recently, USDA rules allowed organic brewers to use much cheaper conventional hops. In 2007, the National Organic Standards Board […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Santa goat is coming to town!
The holidays are rolling around, so we’ll be hosting our annual Open House here in our western Colorado office on Wednesday, Dec. 15. Please join us at 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, for refreshments and conversation from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. POETS, BIKERS AND WINE-LOVERS COME TO CALLGeoff Wheeler stopped by our headquarters to visit […]