Wildfire arsonist Raymond Oyler is tried for murder after five firefighters die in California’s Esperanza Fire.
Summer blizzard
Wonderful things are everywhere — but you have to pay attention in order to see them.
Crime crackdown in Indian Country
A federal effort to improve public safety on reservations gets a rocky start
The Latest
StoryA biologist finds what she believes to be wolf scat and tracks on a ranch in northwestern Colorado (HCN, 2/15/10) Followup Cristina Eisenberg, an Oregon State University doctoral student employed by the High Lonesome Ranch, collected 18 scat samples for DNA analysis. Now, the results are in: 11 samples were from coyotes, or had preliminary…
The wealthy shouldn’t whine
In regards to the article “Health studies gas up,” I am frustrated at Ms. Waldholz’s lack of perspective (HCN, 6/21/10). While I agree wholeheartedly with all the measures to safeguard the public health and the health of the environment discussed in this article, I can’t help getting upset by who is doing the complaining: wealthy…
The worst manmade wildfires
Editor’s note for “The Fiery Touch”
Asbestos all around us
Libby is the most unsung of environmental disasters (HCN, 6/21/10). People know (or knew) about Love Canal and even Times Beach and Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, but no one has heard of Libby; and yet the exposures continue, as your “Data” stated. I have done work for the federal Department of Health and Human…
The wrong head rolled
I am a friend and colleague of Elizabeth (“Liz”) Birnbaum, who recently managed the Minerals Management Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior. She left her position several weeks into the BP spill in the Gulf. The reporting on her sometimes claims or implies that she lacks sufficient commitment to environmental protection or safety.…
Discovery and recovery in a Mojave casino town
Going Through GhostsMary Sojourner296 pages, softcover: $25.University of Nevada Press, 2010. Shadows inhabit every corner of Mary Sojourner’s newest novel, Going Through Ghosts — spirits of ancestors and deceased friends, fragments of characters’ souls. The settings — casino coffee shops, riverside benches, buses — are places a Westerner will recognize as haunts of the lonely…
Hula on the hill
“When I first found out about the Cool Water Hula (in 2000), I thought it was the dumbest thing I’d ever heard of,” says Tom Malloy, a tall, brawny ex-football player who now works as reclamation manager for the Butte-Silver Bow County Planning Department. “This time, I’m gonna dance in it.” The Cool Water Hula…
Of rivers, boats and baseball umpires
Another Waythe River Has:Taut True Talesfrom the NorthwestRobin Cody208 pages, softcover: $18.95.Oregon State University Press, 2010. Robin Cody inspired me to buy a kayak. A confirmed landlubber, it didn’t occur to me to become familiar with my local waterways until I read Cody’s eclectic collection of essays, Another Way the River Has: Taut True Tales…
Private equity not prudent for tribes
“The Ute Paradox” was well-written and thoroughly researched (HCN, 7/19/10). However, I have devoted 22 years of my working life to the Southern Utes’ success, and must respectfully disagree with some of Jonathan Thompson’s conclusions. The article states that “Mr. Jurrius … brought capital from a huge private equity firm with which the tribe was…
Some notable arson wildfire cases in the West
Sidebar to “The Fiery Touch”
Summer Visitors
Along with cherries and apricots, summer always brings a bountiful crop of visitors to our offices in Paonia, Colo. Author and photographer Dave Showalter came by on a Western Slope trip from his home in Arvada, Colo. He’s working on a conservation book depicting the beauty of the West’s sagebrush ecosystem and the many threats…
The Fiery Touch
Wildfire arsonists burn forests, grasslands and houses — and kill people. Now one faces the death penalty.
The drift dweller
Colorado scientists track the ubiquitous mountain snow mold
In Utah, the more things change, the more they stay the same
No one can accurately predict the future, whether it’s the effects of climate change or the flow of the Colorado River. But it’s always interesting to speculate. Here in San Juan County, Utah, it appeared there might be some progress in the decades-old debate over which public lands should be protected as wilderness. Republican Sen.…
A river again?
Obama’s EPA extends protection to L.A.’s urban watershed
Leasing lag?
During the past two years, the Bureau of Land Management has been offering less land for oil and gas leasing in Wyoming. The trend is due largely to market conditions — a reflection of low current and future oil and gas prices — but energy experts also cite a surplus in non-producing acreage, an increase…
Vermillion surprise
BLM’s no-drilling decision in Colorado startles locals