Below Montana’s famous big sky, the environmental wounds of history fester. Along the banks of the Clark Fork River, for example, from Warm Springs to Milltown, Montana, one of the largest Superfund sites in the United States stretches across 120 miles of communities and streambeds. Large swaths of the Clark Fork River have slowly been […]
Milltown renaissance: Who would have believed it?
Posted inJune 22, 2015: Dust to Dust
Why rare-earth mining in the West is a bust
Forget the hype. In the global rush for energy-critical elements, our region can’t compete.
Posted inArticles
Ranch Diaries: An East Coast visitor adds some perspective
Sometimes hosting an outsider is the perfect reboot.
Posted inArticles
Canada can’t expand oil sands and also meet global climate goals
103 scientists call for a moratorium on new development.
Posted inArticles
Go behind the scenes of wildlife science
Sneak preview of a new HCN video series that explores field research shaping the West today.
Posted inArticles
Mapping 7 million gallons of crude oil spills
A thousand pipeline ruptures or spills reported nationwide in the past five years.
Posted inArticles
Battle of the Lands: Denali wins
Readers voted in our bracket-style tournament to crown the West’s best public lands on which to recreate.
Posted inArticles
Outfitters seek exemption from new federal minimum wage
Bill would allow recreation businesses to operate on federal land without paying staff $10.10 an hour.
Posted inArticles
HCN forum: Local control in a federal West
Hear a panel of experts discuss whether communities should have more authority over federal lands in their backyards.
Posted inArticles
Senate committee votes to block Obama’s clean water rule
Republicans say new rule would give the federal government too much authority over waterways and wetlands.
Posted inArticles
Prairie dog case challenges ESA
District judge rules ESA has no say over species that don’t have multi-state presence or economic impact.
Posted inArticles
Mad Max rides into the West
Last Thursday, I emerged from a movie theatre weak-kneed and sweaty-pitted, nerves fried and brain buzzing, simultaneously terrified and exhilarated by the sight of my own car in the parking lot. I had just seen Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller’s deranged ode to vehicles, explosions, and maybe, just maybe, the importance of environmental advocacy. Most […]
Posted inArticles
BLM advances solar project that will harm bighorn sheep
The Bechtel Corporation’s Soda Mountain solar farm will undo decades of conservation in California.
Posted inArticles
Bipartisan weather emerges in the Northern Rockies
Blustery winds that tear at your exposed skin and clothing day after day, keeping you on edge. Outbursts of bone-rattling thunder and lightning strikes on top of you, followed by pounding rain and barrages of hailstones that force everyone to scurry for cover. Mud galore. But occasionally, through magical openings in the clouds, sunlight beams […]
Posted inArticles
Natural gas leaks are dangerous and exacerbate climate change
Plus, enough gas has escaped infrastructure since 2010 to heat 170,000 homes for a year.
Posted inArticles
EPA says fracking could contaminate drinking water
Feds identify no widespread problem but concede to insufficient data.
Posted inJune 8, 2015: Tree of Life
Wetland clarification
A little clarification is needed to better understand the setting of “The Wetland Wars” (HCN, 5/11/15). The Los Angeles River did not flow continuously through the Ballona Wetlands previous to the calamitous flood of 1825. A flood that had occurred 10 years earlier caused the river to shift westward, away from the hundreds of square […]
Posted inJune 8, 2015: Tree of Life
Trade imbalance
There is something missing from “Trade winds blow through the West” (HCN, 5/25/15). There is much talk about poor Rifle and other communities suffering from depressed natural gas production, and the hopes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will once again increase production and, therefore, jobs in the West. This is undoubtedly true. But what about the obvious […]
Posted inJune 8, 2015: Tree of Life
The precious common
Imagine a white burqa crossed with a beekeeper’s suit. At the end of one arm protrudes a pterodactyl-esque puppet head with a long bill, a blazing red pate and cheeks streaked a vivid black. But its golden eyes are flat and unmoving, like those of a specimen in a museum diorama. If you’re a whooping […]
Posted inJune 8, 2015: Tree of Life
Southwest rain, Endangered Species Act, school-to-prison pipeline and more.
Hcn.org news in brief.