Energy companies are reaping billions in the West today, but few states are making sure that enough of that wealth stays at home and is invested wisely.
Also in this issue: The long and carefully planned campaign to protect the Ojito Wilderness in New Mexico holds useful lessons for wilderness activists across the West.
Las Vegas deserves some credit
Let’s be real. Despite your recent story on Nevada, the world of water has changed of late and the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) gets a good portion of the credit (HCN, 9/19/05: Squeezing water from a stone). SNWA reinvented water in the Southwest, changing a nastily competitive situation from the “whiskey’s for drinkin’, water’s…
Legalizing pot is the solution
The war on drugs will only be solved if we legalize marijuana (HCN, 10/31/05: The public lands’ big cash crop). Sadly, and hypocritically, the agencies that are supposed to be solving the drug problem look the other way when push comes to shove. They make token arrests while leaving the cartels intact to rake in…
The bright side of meth
Your article “Methamphetamine fuels the West’s oil and gas boom” presented a very one-sided look at the problem (HCN, 10/3/05: Methamphetamine fuels the West’s oil and gas boom). You acknowledged that meth helped the workers survive long, hard 12-hour days and that the drug can keep a user awake for hours or even days. You…
Yellowstone fires still ignite controversy
On Sept. 7, 1988, author Rocky Barker stood with a fellow journalist near Old Faithful and witnessed this scene: “Coals were pelting his back and I could see fist-sized firebrands by my head. We jumped a small stream and stumbled through the forest toward safety. The entire area turned black as night and the howling…
Life — and death — in grizzly country
The popular impression of Timothy Treadwell, who died in Alaska just over two years ago, is that he was a delusional crackpot who deserved his fate: to be killed and eaten by a bear. News coverage painted him as a foolish amateur bear biologist — well-intentioned but not very bright — who paid with his…
Buffalo Calf Road Woman
Buffalo Calf Road Woman Rosemary Agonito and Joseph Agonito 245 pages, softcover: $12.95 Globe Pequot Press, 2005. In Buffalo Calf Road Woman, the Agonitos describe the final, tragic days of Plains Indian culture as it was being ripped apart by settlers and soldiers. This fictionalized account portrays Buffalo Calf Road Woman, who rescued her brother…
The Ardent Birder
The Ardent Birder Todd Newberry and Gene Holtan 214 pages, softcover: $14.95 Ten Speed Press, 2005. Professor Todd Newberry and artist Gene Holtan have produced a whimsical, fun book about the “lovely madness” that possesses bird watchers. Useful tips abound: how to host a birding field trip, what gear to bring, ways to identify a…
Hear Him Roar
Hear Him Roar Andrew Wingfield 240 pages, softcover: $19.95 Utah State University Press, 2005. Puma concolor, the mountain lion, meets Homo dingus dongus, the urban dweller who is all for wild nature — as long as it’s predator-free. Set in Sacramento, Calif., this is a tensely told novel about the inevitable conflict between humans and…
The Latest Bounce
Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., is ready to reopen the U.S. coast for offshore drilling (HCN, 7/25/05: Will the real Mr. Pombo please stand up?). New drilling has been prohibited off the coast, except in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, since the early 1980s, thanks to a congressional moratorium. But in October, Pombo introduced a…
In Washington, the most outrageous sins are legal
On the grand stage of political tragicomedy, the spotlight rarely shines on the Council for Republican Environmental Advocacy, prestigious though its origins may be. The nonprofit CREA was founded by Gale Norton, now secretary of the Interior, shortly after she lost the 1996 Republican U.S. Senate primary in Colorado. Helping finance it was Grover Norquist,…
Gold from the Gas Fields
As energy companies reap billions from the region’s energy reserves, some Westerners question whether enough of the wealth is staying home
Storing fat from the feeding frenzy
Every fall, black bears enter a ravenous state in which they will do almost anything for food. Biologists call it hyperphagia — the time of super eating. Bears in hyperphagia can get into trouble if the search for calories leads them astray — to the greasy garbage cans behind the local diner, or to a…
Dear friends
HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE The staff of High Country News cordially invites all readers and friends to our holiday open house. It will be at our Paonia, Colo., office at 119 Grand Avenue on Wednesday, Dec. 7, from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Feel free to bring a treat to share; we’ll provide beverages. PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS…
The little wilderness that could
New Mexico conservationists build support from the ground up, and win one
‘Death is stingless indeed and as beautiful as life’
I was over 80 when I found myself in a college classroom with 20-year-olds, wondering how to bridge the age gap and teach them something useful about the conservation movement in America and my role in it. I began by remarking that it must be hard for them to believe that I was once their…
Trouble on the Valles Caldera
Push to keep cows on preserve clashes with mandate to make money
Heard around the West
NEVADA You’ve gotta love Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas: He doesn’t hesitate to trumpet what he thinks, no matter how over the top. Appearing on a TV program in Carson City recently, the mayor sounded off on lawbreakers who spraypaint graffiti over freeways. “These punks come along and deface it,” he said, according…
Public-lands agenda turns more radical, urgent
As political winds start to turn against him, Pombo pushes to sell off forests, parks, wilderness areas
Congress loosens organic standards
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Agriculture gets a half-step greener.” Large-scale organic food producers have beaten back an effort to strengthen national organic standards. The Organic Trade Association, which represents 1,600 farmers, distributors and grocers, had feared that stricter standards would hinder…
Agriculture gets a half-step greener
Nonprofit promotes new eco-label for crops grown with fewer chemicals
‘Sticking around’ for an alpine valley
From his kitchen window, Attilio Genasci can see past barns and alfalfa fields to a small knoll jutting up from the flat expanse of Sierra Valley. Angie, his wife of 50 years, is buried there. For Genasci, 96, the vista is a daily reminder of his promise to Angie to protect this spacious valley, 45…
Energy companies plow some profits back into Western ground
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Gold from the Gas Fields.” As he sat in his Houston office on Nov. 10, Raymond Plank, the chairman of Apache Corporation, tracked news reports about the Washington, D.C., hearing, in which members of the U.S. Senate scolded five of his fellow oil-company executives.…