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Just wanted to commend Leah Sottile and HCN for an excellent article, “Did James Plymell Need to Die?” (March 2021). I worked at the County Alcohol and Drug program in Albany, Oregon, years ago, and it seems the same difficulties in service delivery are still at play. Issues of homelessness and chemical dependency are complicated […]

I wanted to thank you for the February issue “End of the Line.” I grew up in Billings, Montana; saw Colstrip more times than a teenager should; read the Global 200 Report to the President shortly after it came out; and hiked Canyonlands in the smog from the Four Corners plants. I’ve been a rabid […]

As someone who lives in a city that depends on Colorado River water for its residential water supply, I worry about the trends of increasing demand and decreasing supply. I was disappointed, though, to see the article “High and dry” (March 2021) close with a warning that “people need to ditch way more lawns.” To […]

The analysis in the article about Western roots of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was excellent (“A siege with Western roots and consequences,” February 2021). Resistance to public-land takeovers is now going on in Washington County, Idaho, where three county ordinances that place restrictions on federal lands may be repealed because a new […]

The excellent February 2021 “End of the Line” issue hit home in several ways today as I read Jessica Kutz’s “Life After Coal.” I was halfway through the article when the outbound (read: filled) Union Pacific coal train from the West Elk Mine, east of Paonia, passed only 160 feet from our home. Nothing new, […]

As a long-time HCN subscriber (going back to the tabloid format in the 1980s), I’d like to thank Maya L. Kapoor for her excellent reporting in general, and for “The next mining boom” (March 2021), in particular. I was not aware of this mining proposal, but I have some personal connections to the Thacker Pass […]

The color photographs in the “End of the Line” issue helped me link the stories:  the sun shining on the site of a future hospital, bison grazing in the soon-to-be-tribal Bison Range, and alpacas grazing in Colorado ranchland under the eyes of LGBTQ+ herders. Smokestacks of the Navajo Generating Station come tumbling down in a giant […]