A strategic miscalculation by environmental groups helped spur the delisting of gray wolves in Montana and Idaho.
BLM shields renewable projects from mining speculation
“Some snotty bugger went in and staked a bunch of mining claims just to make a hurdle,” says Dave Shaddrick, president of the Nevada Mineral Exploration Coalition. Four claims, actually, filed last April on the site of the contentious 400-megawatt Silver State solar power plant near Las Vegas, Nev. Some believe that locals, angry that…
A nuclear watchdog pushes feds on safety
On April 14, California State Sen. Sam Blakeslee grilled Nuclear Regulatory Commission official Troy Pruett on the seismic hazards facing California’s nuclear plants. It was roughly a month after a tsunami generated by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake swamped the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan. Blakeslee, whose Central Coast district includes Pacific Gas & Electric’s Diablo…
How the gray wolf lost its endangered status — and how enviros helped
Augusta, MontanaIn September of 1995, I worked on a trail-building crew along the edge of Little Blackfoot Meadows, in the Helena National Forest near Elliston, Mont. It was a big piece of roadless country, mostly lodgepole pines over a lush carpet of whortleberry bushes. The meadows were a sunburnt dun color, and the willows along…
The One-Eyed Squirrel of Ooh-Aah Point
It was a mid-July morning during my fifth summer on Grand Canyon National Park’s trail crew, and I arrived at the worksite on the South Kaibab Trail to find an old woman — memory casts her with doughy white skin and frumpy teal-colored clothes — perched on a rock on the side of the trail.…
Greening a city … and pushing other colors out
San Francisco, CaliforniaThe Hunters Point Naval Shipyard covers 500 acres on San Francisco’s southeastern flank, jutting out into the bay like the fletching of a giant arrow. Acquired by the U.S. Navy in 1940, it was once one of the West Coast’s largest shipyards, at its World War II peak employing up to 17,000 people,…
Richard Reynolds, raptor man
The main cabin at Big Springs Field Station in northern Arizona’s Kaibab National Forest isn’t the prettiest; there’s paint chipping from the floors and mouse poop in the corners. But the decorations cost about $9 million and took 20 years to collect. Oversized graphs, tables, maps and aerial photos crowd each other for wall space.…
A Gem City Atlas: Novel maps of Laramie, Wyoming
What is Laramie? This winter, creative writing graduate students at the University of Wyoming teamed with Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas author Rebecca Solnit and cartographers Ben Pease and Shizue Seigel to answer that question. The series of maps and essays that resulted provide a nuanced portrait of place — one that pairs missile…
The cost of righteousness
I have a friend named Gina who is a great marriage counselor. Gina is roly-poly and effervescent — her mere presence disarms uptight people. With a Ph.D., an M.D. and decades of experience, she’s an empathetic listener, expressing just enough of her own opinions to create a genuine conversation and strive for breakthroughs. She’s very…
Watts of memories
Paul Larmer’s comments about his early years in D.C., and how many lobbyists stayed connected with the West through High Country News, brought to mind my early years with the Bureau of Land Management (HCN, 5/2/11). In the early ’80s, as James Watt ascended to the position of Interior secretary, I got my first taste…
Wolverines in unexpected places
On April 17, biologist Audrey Magoun and husband Pat Valkenburg discovered intriguing tracks in Oregon’s snowy Wallowa Mountains. Five days later, Magoun downloaded photos from a remote camera and realized the creature had company: Two hungry wolverines stared back from her screen, gnashing hunks of bait meat. It’s the first confirmed evidence of Oregon wolverines…
The endless atlas: A review of Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas
Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas Rebecca Solnit167 pages, softcover: $24.95.University of California Press, 2010. San Francisco author Rebecca Solnit’s latest release, Infinite City, can be loosely described as an atlas of her hometown. But Solnit is interested in far more than geographical representation, as she writes in the book’s foreword: “An atlas is a…
Chill out with HCN and some chili
We’d like to invite our Colorado Western Slope readers and friends to a potluck chili feast following our late-spring board meeting. Come meet other HCN fans and our staff and board members. The fun starts at 6 p.m. on Friday, June 10, at the Town Park here in Paonia. We’ll provide the chili — hot,…
Did I mention she can cook?
Debbie Sease was a welcome face on the cover of High Country News (5/2/11). The story didn’t mention two singular aspects of her career. She and the other graying conservationists in the story have all have been extraordinary mentors for many, many others. I got to know Debbie working at the Sierra Club many years…
An interview with Carter Niemeyer, author of “Wolfer: A Memoir”
Carter Niemeyer is a wildlife biologist who started his career doing predator control and ended it working on wolf recovery in the northern Rockies. His new book, Wolfer: A Memoir, chronicles his years capturing, tracking, relocating and killing wolves for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Idaho Department of Game. The gray wolf’s…
Idolizing Ed
Call me humorless, but I was disturbed when I read Michael Branch’s essay about the boulder he and his buddies sent smashing downhill (HCN, 5/2/11). His joyous description of the event, in which he channels Ed Abbey’s ribald style perfectly, strikes my sober ear as just another chapter of the bad old story of humans…
Respect for our (female) elders
Thanks for the article on the inspirational and tenacious Debbie Sease (HCN, 5/2/11). I work for The Wilderness Society and elders like Debbie, Johanna Wald of the Natural Resources Defense Council and volunteer Marge Sill with the Sierra Club in Reno are the inspiration for me and so many other women in the movement. While…
All in not-so-good taste
This is my first time writing in to comment on an HCN story and what finally prompted me was not the contentious, passionate piece that I figured would inspire me to put fingers to keyboard. Instead, it was the slightly naughty, indulgent, but thoroughly invigorating essay about rock rolling (HCN, 5/2/11). I read the story…
Indebted to Debbie
Kudos on your terrific article about Debbie Sease (HCN, 5/2/11). Those who have worked to protect land, water and wildlife with Debbie throughout her career know how talented she is and how much she has accomplished. All who love the West’s wild lands are indebted to Debbie.Johanna WaldSan Francisco, California This article appeared in the…