Magazine
May 12, 2008
An energy boom of unprecedented proportions is transforming western Colorado towns like Rifle, which just recently recovered from the last big energy boom – and a catastrophic bust.
Feature
An energy boom of unprecedented proportions is
transforming western Colorado towns like Rifle, which just recently
recovered from the last big energy boom – and a catastrophic
bust.
Editor's Note
Just as western Colorado towns like Rifle have begun a new
life as thriving “amenity” economies, an energy boom of
unprecedented proportions has taken over the landscape.
Essays
Ernest Atencio ponders an exceptionally muddy Mud Season
in New Mexico, and notes how readily most Westerners forget that we
live in an arid landscape.
Shane Bondi seeks to understand the connection between a
lump of coal, a power plant and that first cup of coffee in the
morning.
Dear Friends
Ray Ring wins Hillman journalism award; Sopris Surfers
gives free Internet to intern house; hcn.org; welcome, Mandela Lou
Hoffman; Camas literary magazine; corrections.
News
Ron Gillett brings his anti-wolf crusade to the small
farming town of Ashton, Idaho.
Law professor Mary C. Wood wants to use “atmospheric
trust litigation” to tackle global warming in the
courts.
The West’s weather is full of surprises this spring,
with snowstorms, windstorms, rain and wildfires all happening at
the same time.
Book Reviews
In Contact: Mountain Climbing and Environmental Thinking,
Jeffrey Mathes McCarthy has assembled 23 essays from a wide range
of authors.
In his first book, The Enders Hotel, Brandon R. Schrand
describes a childhood spent growing up in a funky hotel in the
small town of Soda Springs, Idaho.
Heard Around the West
John Slemp takes the ride of his life, into a volcano;
Douglas Bruce strikes again; cow-pie tossing and other delights;
imposter dog?; “jingle mail”; and “virtual”
border fence is a botched-up bust.
Letters
Two Weeks in the West
Wind and solar energy projects ramp up across the West;
Conservation Reserve Program ramps down; the West’s volcanic
history; potatoes are good for you.
- on Jim Deacon, pioneering desert fish biologist, dies
- Larry Bullock on Ranch Diaries: A New Mexico cattle company is born
- Randy Piper on Bark beetle kill leads to more severe fires, right? Well, maybe
- Delaine Spilsbury on The water czar who reshaped Colorado River politics
- Buck Drew on Chainsaw diplomacy
