An environmentalist who owns royalty interest in New
Mexico oil and gas wells heads down to the San Juan Basin to talk
to rancher Tweeti Blancett, driller Tom Dugan and others about the
moral complexities inherent in Americans’ energy
use
Magazine

December 25, 2006
An environmentalist who owns royalty interest in New Mexico oil and gas wells heads down to the San Juan Basin to talk to rancher Tweeti Blancett, driller Tom Dugan and others about the moral complexities inherent in Americans’ energy use. Also in this issue: Kern County, Calif., is trying to prevent Los Angeles sludge from entering the county, where it is used to fertilize farmland, and the resulting stink is raising all kinds of questions about how we handle human waste.
Feature
Editor's Note
This issue’s cover essay on New Mexico’s gas
fields – and our publisher’s adventures during a recent
snowstorm in Paonia – reveal the complex links that bind
Westerners together for better or worse
Uncommon Westerners

The music Roger Clyne writes and performs with his band,
Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, is inspired by the Arizona
desert
Essays
A photo essay follows Matt Smith and the other New
Zealanders who make up the company Shear Pleasure as they travel
Montana, visiting sheep ranches, shearing sheep, and drinking hard
at the end of the day
There’s nothing like a campfire to soothe and lift
the soul
Book Reviews
In Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes,
the late historian Alvin Josephy Jr. has assembled essays by nine
Indian writers who examine the Corps of Discovery from the other
side of the cultural looking glass
Writers on the Range
If we truly want to "salvage" our forests – and the
rest of our environment – we need to think beyond salvage
logging, and acknowledge that the value of dead trees cannot be
measured in board-feet alone
Buyer’s remorse is strong in Oregon, where Measure
37 has sparked a developer’s feeding frenzy that has
Oregonians’ heads spinning
Heard Around the West
Is it a grolarbear or a pizzly?; garage doors vs. homeland
security; hermaphrodite deer; Park Service fees; the drilling rig
next door; school buses become billboards in Colorado
Dear Friends
HCN takes a holiday break; Betsy
Marston and Jon Christensen on TV; HCN hosts
discussion and film in San Francisco; a note from Steve Wilent of
indy paper The Mountain Times;
correction.
News
Kern County, Calif., is trying to prevent Los Angeles
sludge from entering the county, where it is used to fertilize
farmland, and the resulting stink is raising all kinds of questions
about how we handle human waste
Two Weeks in the West
Supreme Court to consider use of mobster law to sue
federal employees; water to return to California’s Owens
River; Timothy B. Sundles confesses to wolf poisoning; drilling
banned on Rocky Mountain Front; Western religion or lack thereof;
Christmas tree
Letters
- Yes, the drought really is that bad
- The Navajo Nation’s first economist takes a fresh view on development
- The Yurok Tribe is bringing condors home to Northern California skies
- What’s wrong with the Manitou Cliff Dwellings Museum and Preserve?
- Duwamish Tribe sues Interior in federal court, alleging sex discrimination
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