Magazine
May 2, 2005
Colorado citizens voted last November to increase their state’s reliance on power from the wind and sun, but King Coal still rules the state, and the White House seems determined to keep it on the throne. Also in this issue: Utah has finally convinced the Department of Energy to move the Atlas uranium mine tailings pile from its site just north of Moab, where the tailings are leaking into the Colorado River.
Feature
Colorado citizens voted last November to increase their
state’s reliance on power from the wind and sun, but King
Coal still rules the state, and the White House seems determined to
keep it on the throne
Editor's Note
It’s a good thing leadership is emerging in the West
on energy issues, because President Bush’s energy plan is a
step in the wrong direction
Uncommon Westerners
Woodworker Gordon West turns small and irregular pine logs
into useful building materials in his shop near Silver City,
N.M.
Essays
Environmentalists made a mistake when they settled with
the city of Albuquerque over water use on the Middle Rio Grande in
New Mexico
From Devils Tower to the Devils Slide, Old Nick is very
much at home in the West
Dear Friends
"Animal Planet" at the HCN office;
Leslie Glustrom vs. coal; correction; HCN Paonia potluck
News
The Department of Energy finally agrees to move the Atlas
uranium mine tailings pile away from Moab, Utah, and the flood risk
of the Colorado River.
Montana approves green-power initiative; geothermal
company takes Valles Caldera Preserve to court; bills to exempt
hydraulic fracturing from regulation; William Jensen Cottrell
sentenced for SUV vandalism
California farmworkers fight for stricter regulations on
hand weeding, only to find themselves at odds with organic
farmers.
With the Land and Water Conservation Fund at a 10-year low
and Western politicians trying to sell off the public lands,
conserving open space requires the kind of creative solution that
helped saved Colorado’s Beaver Brook watershed
Despite local support for the creation of a Badlands
Wilderness Area east of Bend, Ore., the Deschutes County Commission
votes to take no action at all on the matter
A recent experimental flood from Glen Canyon Dam may have
killed endangered native humpback chub in the Colorado River
through Grand Canyon
A judge rules that constructing the Rock Creek Mine would
jeopardize threatened populations of grizzly and bull trout in the
Cabinet Mountains Wilderness of Montana
The Bureau of Land Management is shortening the amount of
time that citizens and environmental groups in Wyoming and Utah
will have to protest oil and gas leases
Book Reviews
In Drummond: Ranch Life in the West,
Jill Brody uses photographs and interviews to paint a vivid
portrait of life in a hardscrabble Montana ranching town
In his latest book, Energy Resolution,
Howard Geller offers his suggestions for a sustainable energy
future
Serafina’s Stories by Rudolfo
Anaya tells the tale of a 17th century Pueblo Indian
story-teller’s encounter with the Spanish governor in old New
Mexico
In The River Has Never Divided Us,
Jefferson Morganthaler studies the hard-working people of La Junta
de los Rios, a river basin along the U.S.-Mexican border
In The Mountains Know Arizona, Michael
Collier and Rose Houk combine photographs and words to create a
spectacular homage to the mountains of Arizona
Heard Around the West
Honor in bar fights; philanthropic roughnecks; salmon vs.
sea lions; skunks; cowboy caviar; "Liquid Gold"; slime-mold beetles
named for Bush and friends
Letters
Related Stories
Wind farms are working to make their turbines less
hazardous to birds and bats
Six Western states now have renewable energy
standards
