The West’s big newspapers fall short when it comes
to covering today’s most important issues: the "big story"
about the environment, and the impacts on the region of growth and
development
Magazine

October 13, 2003
The West’s big newspapers fall short when it comes to covering today’s most important issues: the "big story" about the environment, and the impacts on the region of growth and development. Also in this issue:Lea County, N.M., is courting Louisiana Energy Services, a company that wants to build a uranium-enrichment facility to create fuel for nuclear power plants.
Feature
Sidebar
A.L. "Butch" Alford of the Lewiston, Idaho, Morning
Tribune is a good example of a publisher who truly believes in
independent journalism
The Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources
presented the first Wallace Stegner Awards in September to nine
Western newspapers for excellence
Karen Dorn Steele of the Spokane Spokesman-Review showed
how a reporter at a regional paper can have a national impact, when
she uncovered the extent of radioactive contamination at Hanford
Nuclear Reservation
Editor's Note
Environmental issues in the West are the region’s
"big story" – and it’s high time the region’s big
newspapers covered them adequately
Essays
The writer wishes Theodore Roosevelt could return and give
the Republican party – and the rest of us – a good
talking-to about conservation today
Book Reviews
In Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines of American
Wildfire, John N. Mclean leads readers through sweaty-palmed human
encounters with Western wildfires
A Season of Fire: Four Months on the Firelines of
America’s Forests by Douglas Gantenbein refuses to glamorize
firefighting or settle for simple solutions to the West’s
fire problems
A coalition called America Votes plans to educate voters
and work with grassroots groups across the country to pump up
election-day turnout
Writers on the Range
Bozeman, Mont., is one of over 175 communities in the U.S.
that have passed resolutions opposing the Patriot Act
Heard Around the West
Desert residents vs. desert sand; really overdue library
books; Ken Lay’s Aspen real estate woes; sage grouse vs. jets
in Wyoming; "emergency phone" calls in North Dakota; gardener named
Gardener vs. Laramie, Wyo.; and Oregon driver vs. bee
Dear Friends
Congratulations to newlyweds Michelle Nijhuis and Jack
Perrin; Keep independent journalism alive through the Research
Fund; the paper for people who care about the West
News
Lea County, N.M., is courting Louisiana Energy Services, a
company that wants to build a uranium-enrichment facility to create
fuel for nuclear power plants
Superfund runs out of money; Sen. Pete Dominici reneges on
promise to not drill in ANWR; Kwicksutaineuk Tribe in British
Columbia sues corporate fish farms; whistleblower Kevin Gambrell
fired from Farmington, N.M., Indian Minerals Office; company wants
to
Scientists have finally found a way to save the white pine
from blister rust – but finding space in the forest to plant
new trees is proving almost as difficult
California farmers have long been exempt from the Clean
Air Act, but that may change, as legislators and activists tackle
the health and environmental problems linked to agriculture in the
San Joaquin Valley
Beryllium contamination in a Las Vegas Energy Department
complex may have come from a 1965 nuclear reactor explosion, some
85 miles away
Portland, Ore., is bursting at the seams, and urban
planners are starting to covet the Willamette Valley’s
farmland
A court ruling may lead to the removal of the endangered
status currently assigned to Arizona’s cactus ferruginous
pygmy-owls
In Utah, Kane and Garfield county commissioners escalate
their fight against Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument,
demanding the reduction of funding and staff and the demotion of
monument manager Dave Hunsaker
Letters
- Nevada lithium mine kicks off a new era of Western extraction
- ‘Wild Indian’ is much more than just an Indigenous film
- In Arizona, building a wall — and destroying a canyon
- Will the climate crisis tap out the Colorado River?
- All fracked up: A debut memoir wrestles with toxic masculinity in the oil fields
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