Feature

The Winds of Change

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

The revolution will not be televised

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

Dear Friends

Dear friends

"Animal Planet" at the HCN office; Leslie Glustrom vs. coal; correction; HCN Paonia potluck

Uncommon Westerners

For this logger, twisted trees are the future

Woodworker Gordon West turns small and irregular pine logs into useful building materials in his shop near Silver City, N.M.

News

Colorado River kisses a toxic mess good-bye

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.

Follow-up

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

Backbreaking work props up 'sustainable' crops

California farmworkers fight for stricter regulations on hand weeding, only to find themselves at odds with organic farmers.

As threats loom, conservation dollars disappear

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

Wilderness wallows in rural county

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

On the Colorado, a grand experiment meets Mother Nature

A recent experimental flood from Glen Canyon Dam may have killed endangered native humpback chub in the Colorado River through Grand Canyon

Bears and bull trout may block mine

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

Oil and gas opponents will have to move faster

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

Down — but far from out — in Drummond

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

Getting smarter about energy use

In his latest book, Energy Resolution, Howard Geller offers his suggestions for a sustainable energy future

Serafina's Stories

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

The River Has Never Divided Us: A Border History of La Junta de los Rios

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

The Mountains Know Arizona

In The Mountains Know Arizona, Michael Collier and Rose Houk combine photographs and words to create a spectacular homage to the mountains of Arizona

Essays

So-called 'peace treaty' won't save the Rio Grande

Environmentalists made a mistake when they settled with the city of Albuquerque over water use on the Middle Rio Grande in New Mexico

The devil made us do it

From Devils Tower to the Devils Slide, Old Nick is very much at home in the West

Heard Around the West

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

Advocates aren't citizens, says Watson

A little leg-pulling

Climbers not just 'rock jocks'

Ski snow won't be yellow on San Francisco Peaks

Wild horses harm ecosystems

Buyouts doom private lands

Related Stories

Blades, birds and bats: Wind energy and wildlife not a cut-and-dried issue

Wind farms are working to make their turbines less hazardous to birds and bats

Renewable Energy Standards: How do states match up?

Six Western states now have renewable energy standards