Colorado’s Animas River has gotten the most attention — but it’s hardly alone.
Five Western waterways worse than the orange Animas
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KDNK Radio and HCN editor Jodi Peterson talk sage grouse
The greater sage grouse is at the center of the biggest experiment in the history of the Endangered Species Act.
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What we’ve lost in the Methow Valley wildfires
Three firefighters have died as fires continue to rip through Washington.
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BLM launches a native seeds strategy for damaged landscapes
The initiative aims to restore burned ecosystems and target fire-prone invasives like cheatgrass.
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Scientists strengthen link between climate change and drought
How much of California’s dry spell can be traced to climate change?
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In Colorado, two mass shootings haven’t stopped attacks on gun control
Gun rights continue to polarize groups on both sides, as battle lines are drawn for 2016.
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Animas dispatch: Hundreds celebrate the river’s reopening
Durango may be moving on, but wider fears about the toxic spill still reverberate.
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EPA proposes reducing methane leaks from oil and gas production
The regulations are part of Obama’s strategy to fight climate change.
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New research on how drilling affects deer in northwest Colorado
Landscape-level planning could help mule deer cope with the impacts of oil and gas.
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Without national support, rural radio stations face an uncertain future
From a singlewide trailer perched atop a mesa south of Moab, Utah, KZMU community radio began broadcasting in 1992. It took nine years for the station to build a modest studio next door, but the station kept growing, and in 2008, KZMU erected a solar array to power its electrical needs. Now 23 years old, […]
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Animas River spill: only the latest in 150 years of pollution
Mapping the other threats to the Animas and San Juan Rivers.
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Wild Science: Migratory birds on the Great Salt Lake
Scientists explore how phalaropes respond to less water and increased salinity.
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
Tombstone’s true grit
Review of ‘Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral’ by Mary Doria Russell.
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
The Silicon Valley of marijuana
Local officials want Pueblo County, Colorado, to be the best place to grow, but not everyone’s high on the idea.
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
The man behind the monumental aqueduct
Review of ‘Water to the Angels’ by Les Standiford.
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
The Latest: San Carlos Apache lobbies to protect lands threatened by copper mining
Resolution Copper company engineered a land swap with the feds, but locals oppose it.
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
The Latest: Boulder-White Clouds in Idaho becomes wilderness
Congress gives the highest protection to the area — to avoid an even-larger national monument.
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
The hammer that never fell
Twenty years ago, I got into an argument with a wildlife biologist over the Endangered Species Act. Environmentalists, he said, were abusing the law in their quest to create an ecologically pristine West devoid of loggers, ranchers and other salt-of-the-earth Westerners. By relentlessly pushing the federal government to protect ever more species and habitat, and […]
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
How Utah benefits from the national parks it neglects
Sometimes you get your heart’s desire, and it’s too much. On May 23, the Utah Highway Patrol had to close the entrance to Arches National Park after traffic got backed up for five miles on the highway into nearby Moab. Southwest of Arches, Zion National Park and its gateway town of Springdale also suffer from […]
Posted inAugust 17, 2015: Little Big Bird
Sea lions feast on Columbia salmon
Fishermen, tribes and environmentalists flummoxed as predator numbers swell below Bonneville Dam.