The end of the oil and gas era may be in sight, but the current energy boom in the West means that a rough and wild ride is still ahead.
Also in this issue: After Michele DeHart of the Fish Passage Center in Portland, Ore., publicly supported a plan to protect salmon, angry lawmakers led by Sen. Larry Craig yanked the center’s funding.
Skeletons in the Klamath Basin’s closets
Rebecca Clarren’s article on the Bureau of Reclamation’s Klamath River Basin Water Bank fails to mention that over the past five years, $50 million has been given to farmers in the Basin to reduce their water use through improved irrigation efficiency (HCN, 10/17/05: ‘Water bank’ drags river basin deeper into debt). Where is the water…
Homegrown protectionism
Thank you for your excellent story, “The Public Land’s Big Cash Crop” (HCN, 10/31/05: The Public Lands’ Big Cash Crop). As a recent transplant to Northern California, I’ve had a rapid education on the cultural impacts of this taboo plant. The argument that if only cannabis were legalized the problem would disappear was given short…
Light rail can’t solve growth problems
I was one of those first eager riders on the new light-rail system in Salt Lake City in December of 1999 (HCN, 11/14/05: Back on track). After years of rampant population growth in the Salt Lake Valley, I find that Salt Lake City today has more traffic and congestion, the air is way more polluted,…
County worked hard to control drilling impact
I was disappointed to read the opening statement in “Doubling density near Durango” (HCN, 11/14/05: Doubling density near Durango). As chair of the board of county commissioners who signed memoranda of understanding with BP and with Samson Resources, I can guarantee you that we did not sign “deals allowing two energy companies to double the…
The Latest Bounce
“House Republican Caucus seeks fun-loving individuals to share warm winter evening.” That invitation appeared in a recent e-mail that Utah House Majority Leader Jeff Alexander sent to legislators and lobbyists. House Republican leaders endorsed the “speed dating” idea as a fund-raiser. On Jan. 5, lobbyists who’ve donated to political action committees will each get a…
Not just any book about the grasslands
In the final scene of John Price’s book, Not Just Any Land, a botanist watches buffalo moving in at an Iowa wildlife refuge and says, “There are mysteries about Iowa tallgrass only buffalo can solve.” America’s grasslands, which once stretched from the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains, are now mostly gone, but several national…
Coming home to a Montana town
A clear stream and a cottonwood tree anchor Karen Brichoux’s pensive new novel. The Girl She Left Behind tells the story of Katherine Earle, who flees the big city to return to her tiny hometown in a Montana mountain valley. Katherine had crept away from Montana with her musician fiancé as a lovestruck 18-year-old, without…
Bear
Bear Robert E. Bieder 286 pages, softcover: $19.95 Reaktion Books, 2005. From cave bears to dancing bears, totemic bears to teddy bears, this elegant little book comes lavishly illustrated with bear photos, drawings and paintings. Author Robert E. Bieder tells the history of this fascinating animal through time and across cultures; there’s a treat on…
Sheepherders flock to better-paying jobs
Western ranchers have long relied on foreign workers to tend sheep on the open range. But increasingly, sheepherders are literally walking away from their flocks — and their work visas — in pursuit of more lucrative jobs. The work sheepherders do is hard, the lifestyle is austere, and the pay is low — about $800…
Earth Notes
Earth Notes Edited by Peter Friederici 70 pages, softcover: $6.95 Grand Canyon Association and KNAU, 2005. Served up in two-page bites, Earth Notes is a tasty selection of tidbits about the Southwest’s canyon country. Editor Peter Friederici dishes out a smorgasbord of nicely illustrated topics ranging from heirloom plant seeds to ancient stone calendars to…
BLM boosts winter drilling
The mule deer herd that winters on the mesa east of Pinedale has suffered a 46 percent population decline since 2002, despite a Bureau of Land Management policy that banned most natural gas drilling in the area in wintertime. Now, the BLM wants to allow several more companies to drill throughout the winter — and…
Living Within Our Means: Beyond the Fossil Fuel Credit Card
Living Within Our Means: Beyond the Fossil Fuel Credit Card Kamyar Enshayan 54 pages, softcover: $12 Congdon Printing & Imaging, 2005. Engineer and city councilman Kamyar Enshayan considers the inevitable end of the fossil-fuel joyride. Short essays ponder topics we’ll all need to grapple with — like the truth about hydrogen and ethanol and what…
‘Green’ seal of approval considered for national forests
The Forest Service is considering “green” certification for timber produced on the national forests. And though environmental groups have long touted such certification as a way to improve the management of privately owned forests, they have misgivings about using it for the public lands. Green certification for lumber is something like organic certification for food;…
Don’t blame the Park Service
Michelle Nijhuis’s article “The Ghosts of Yosemite” seems to be little more than a rant against the National Park Service (HCN, 10/17/05: The Ghosts of Yosemite). Rather than dwelling on the threat that global warming poses to native wildlife, Nijhuis instead changes the focus to an unfair criticism of an agency that is hardly responsible…
The Final Energy Frontier
The end of the oil and gas age is in sight. But a rough and wild ride still lies ahead.
The view from above
Former High Country News Publisher Ed Marston used to say that HCN is a lot like a kid who’s just learning to ski: We tend to stay close to the ground. Our far-flung readers and freelance writers tip us off to the stories in their back yards. Even our coverage of what’s happening high up…
Dear friends
VISITORS Longtime subscribers Charlie and Shelley Calisher of Red Feather Lakes, Colo., a town smaller than Paonia, dropped by in mid-September after failing to catch fish on the Dolores River. Writer Susan Tweit (a frequent contributor to these pages) and her husband, Richard Cabe, left a postcard on our door after hours, on their way…
A bullet for the bearer of bad news
Biologists support salmon protection, and Congress yanks their funding
Wheelchairs and wilderness can coexist
Life can change dramatically, in the blink of an eye. Seven years ago, I went backcountry skiing in the Hoover Wilderness near Yosemite. I missed a turn on a steep icy slope and fell into a rocky gully. In that ugly tumble, I crushed my spinal cord. Suddenly, I was a paraplegic. Every able-bodied person…
Flood insurance crimps Western waterways
Federal program fosters development, damages rivers and wetlands
Healing the border with words
Denise Chávez believes that art can — and should — make a difference in everyday lives. “Why is the arts community so mute?” asks Chávez. “On the one hand, it’s a terrible time — people are so fearful, afraid of each other, afraid of people who are different, afraid to learn something new. But it’s…
Alvin Josephy: A gentle, graceful advocate for sovereignty
In a time of significant change for the Nez Perce people of north-central Idaho, a great friend and advocate has left us. The death of historian Alvin M. Josephy at age 90 on Oct. 16 touches our hearts and calls us to reflect on the importance of his life. I was a child when my…
Congress bets on oil shale
But on the ground in the West, big companies are hedging
Vine Deloria Jr.: Writer, scholar and inspired trickster
The modern tribal sovereignty movement has had no single great inspirational leader, no Martin Luther King Jr., no César Chávez. After all, Indian country contains more than 500 separate and independent peoples, each with its own history, traditions, and officials. Yet if one person may be singled out, it is Vine Deloria Jr. A Standing…
Tapping into energy’s fringe
As companies drill for ‘unconventional’ natural gas, environmental impacts mount
Heard around the West
COLORADO A deliciously funny film called The Lost People of Mountain Village wowed audiences at Telluride’s Mountainfilm festival and other venues around western Colorado. In deadpan style, the 15-minute pseudo-documentary explores what happened to the overlords who once lived above high-altitude Telluride. The joke for locals: The “town” of Mountain Village always feels abandoned by…
Westerners slowly adapt to high prices
But what will it take to really make a change?
Forget idealism
Renewable energy will save consumers money