A few suggestions to dramatically reduce exposure to possible contaminants — without breaking the bank
Departments
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 inHeard Around the West
The color-shifting skink
COLORADO Thanks to Colorado Outdoors, the magazine of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, we have a new favorite wild animal — the color-shifting skink. It resembles a stocky snake with lizard-like legs. And like many lizards, it has the wonderful ability to discard and then regenerate its tail any time a predator pounces on […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Housing keeps getting tighter all the time
Moab resident feels development squeeze
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
A divine business
Montanan claims uncanny ability to locate water — and just about anything else
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Hardrock Mining Showdown
For background on previous coverage and history on the 1872 mining law, read our Editor’s Note Geologist Jeff Cornoyer steers a Ford van over a rocky, rutted, winding dirt road, climbing the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains on a toasty August morning. The desert here, about 30 miles southeast of Tucson, is dotted with […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Washington eco-saboteurs topple towers
Monkey-wrenching of radio station doesn’t last
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Forest Service tackles Idaho bighorn problem
Efforts to protect wild sheep from disease gain momentum
Posted inHeard Around the West
Roll up your sleeves and get cranking
THE NATION Common Cause, the nation’s good-government nonprofit, celebrated its 40th anniversary recently at a party in Denver, helped mightily by the humor and smarts of Pat Schroeder. In 1972, Schroeder was the first Colorado woman to be elected to Congress, where she spent a dozen terms focusing on fiscal accountability from the military and […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Send us a letter, the sooner the better
Lately we’ve noticed that we haven’t been hearing from our readers as often as we used to. One of the best things about HCN is our sense of community, exemplified by your intelligent, thoughtful letters. We know you’ve got lots of opinions, ideas and reactions to stories to share — so please drop us a […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Mining Reform: Deja vu again and again
This Editor’s Note accompanies the HCN feature story: Hardrock Mining Showdown. “Mining Reform May Hit Paydirt in 1993.” That was the headline of a story I wrote for High Country News following the election of President Bill Clinton and his appointment of the reform-minded Bruce Babbitt as Interior secretary to oversee the West’s federal lands. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Rocky Mountain noir
The Long Slide Blair Oliver and Peter Soliunas 200 pages, softcover: $20. World Audience, Inc., 2010. The first collaboration from authors Peter Soliunas and Blair Oliver, The Long Slide is at once a pulpy romp across the Rockies and a mash note to the works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. But where those authors […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Tribute to a prickly icon
Matter Journal 13: Edward AbbeyVarious contributors432 pages, softcover: $17.Wolverine Farm Publishing, 2010. The problem with dead authors is that no more work will be forthcoming from them. Without new material to sink their teeth into, both fans and critics of Edward Abbey have long resorted to “secondary sources” — interviews with the curmudgeon’s friends, vintage […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Dam removal is not for dummies
As a retired engineering geologist and self-styled “dam doctor” who had the honor of breaching a dam before Bruce Babbitt, I would like to add a few cautions to Nick Neely’s story (HCN, 11/8/10). Readers should not think it is simple. The upper-right graphic shows that there were plans developed for the removal of the […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
In Tancredo’s corner
The mainstream media routinely distort the position of those opposed to illegal immigration. For example, the Oct. 25, 2010, issue of High Country News called Tom Tancredo, who lost the Colorado Governor’s race, “an anti-immigration rabble-rouser.” Actually Tom Tancredo — as well as the overwhelming majority of Americans — is not “anti-immigration,” but anti-illegal immigration. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Sounds suspicious, Senator
I was disappointed with your article regarding Sen. Tom Coburn (HCN, 11/8/10). You allowed the subject to spew a series of incorrect, or irrelevant “statistics” and “facts.” In the future, please do some research, and correct these kinds of errors, rather than let people trot out falsehoods. Jim Evans Dept. of Geology, Utah State UniversityLogan, […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Lone shepherd on a distant promontory
From where I sit, I see a lone shepherd on a distant promontory, two trusty dogs at his side, a storm posting with all speed from the cold north as a rogue wolf works the edges of the band. The guard dogs, Great Pyrenees and Akbash, are not quite enough to beat off those wolves, […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Snapshot of an election
This article is a sidebar that accompanies the news story, Western elections wrap-up Alarm bells rang early this year when the Supreme Court lifted key restrictions on corporate political spending. The decision gave corporations and unions the right to spend unlimited amounts to explicitly campaign for or against candidates, and allowed independent interest groups to […]
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Not quite so SAD
Since at least 2004, sudden aspen decline, or SAD for short, has killed trees in five Western states in sweeping fashion. By 2008, in Colorado alone, more than a half million acres were afflicted. But after a few wet, cool years, the fatal phenomenon is finally relenting. “We’re pretty sure that the drought in 2002 […]