Why disappearing rural hospitals spell trouble for the Central Valley. In this special feature, High Country News looks at the troubled rural Western healthcare system. Plus, when to say yes to invasive plants, Alaska’s overtaxed firefighters and New Mexico’s oldest climate correspondent.
Bunny times at the state fair, dumpster-diving bears and parasitic springs
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
What hospital closures mean for rural California
The very economic decline that contributed to their closure is likely to be worsened by their disappearance.
Burning questions
I feel that Jane Braxton Little told a very incomplete story of how fire danger relates to beetle-killed trees (“Forest fatalities,” HCN, 8/8/16). Granted, after the needles have fallen off beetle-killed trees, they are less susceptible to forest fires than live trees, but the process of needles falling off takes about four years. Then, about…
Dangers of privatizing parks
What will areas administered by the National Park Service become (HCN, 8/22/16)? Will the enormous shortage of congressional appropriations undermine a century of relative stability? Fifty years ago, massive infrastructure improvements were made under a program called Mission 66, but no such program has existed since. Congress got in the habit of not fulfilling appropriations…
Geology of power
In Paige Blankenbuehler’s article on Diablo Canyon in your Aug. 22 issue, I was surprised that there was no mention that this nuclear station is located near the San Andreas fault. A few decades ago, I was staunchly opposed to nuclear power. After becoming aware of the contribution of fossil fuel-burning power plants to climate…
Meet the West’s oldest climate correspondent
Anna Mae Wright has spent seven decades recording the weather.
Our winning writer, and so long to a good friend
As summer fades, we’re wrapping up our annual photo contest, in which we solicited images of the West’s national parks. While it’s too late to submit a picture, you can still vote for your favorite until Sept. 15 at hcn.org/photos16. Meanwhile, we’ve been busy catching up with visitors. Dave Morris, who works at the Wild…
Reapportionment, Hawaiian style
Your June 13 issue reminded me of my years on Hawaii, where, despite the good intentions of the Bishop Estate’s huge land distribution, the powers that be created conditions similar to what you describe in the present Navajo system (“Disenfranchised in Utah,” HCN, 6/13/16). Bishop lands were in trust, to be divided in half for…
Rural hospitals pool their resources to survive
A group of ten New Mexico hospitals is making a go of it in tough times.
Telemedicine shrinks the West’s vast health desert
In New Mexico, an experiment in treating stroke victims at a distance.
The Fish and Wildlife Service’s endangered species triage
Buried in petitions to list new species, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposes a system for prioritizing who gets help first.
The slaughter of innocents
After prairie dogs invade a corner of her lot, a writer weighs the cost of eliminating them.
A cure for the ‘catch-all’ emergency room
In Colorado, a new movement aims to provide an alternative for people experiencing mental health crises. But does it work?
The West’s widening health care gaps
Changing demographics, including an aging rural population, put more pressure on health care systems.
Alaska’s emergency wildfire crews are burning out
The state is grappling with more fires and fewer fighters where they need them.
Time to make peace with invasive species?
A conversation with climate science director Stephen Jackson about why and where we should tolerate non-native invaders.
Training grounds for climate scientists
Thanks for a great profile of Patrick Gonzalez, National Park Service climate scientist (“Climate change scientist walks the walk,” HCN, 8/22/16). His story is a good walk all the way. Let me add that his Ph.D. was actually earned through the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley, where a good number of climate scientists…
Latest: Feds warn states against letting mining companies self-bond
Three major coal companies have filed for bankruptcy this year.
Latest: NASA determines methane hotspot is from natural gas production
BACKSTORYA methane “hot spot” over the Four Corners region has puzzled scientists for nearly a decade: Concentrations of the greenhouse gas were far higher than could be accounted for by official inventories from known contributors — an underground coal mine, landfills, and oil and gas infrastructure. So in 2015, NASA scientists began an intensive examination…
An electric-power giant is poised to fail
A radical change could be coming to the way electric co-ops across the country do business.