The mines are still in business, yet towns that once flourished are now mostly gone.
Sightseeing at an open pit mine in Arizona copper country
Posted inArticles
The taxpayer money that fuels federal land transfer demands
How the behind-the-scenes lobby group American Lands Council gets funding.
Posted inArticles
Courts force feds to consider climate impacts of mining coal
A Colorado mine sees the latest in a string of rulings that may threaten the industry.
Posted inArticles
A gathering of maritime minstrels on the Oregon coast
Pat Dixon wrote his first fishing poem in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. For 12 years, Dixon had gillnetted salmon in Cook Inlet, the finger of water that points from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage. But after the Valdez dumped its noxious cargo into nearby Prince William Sound, fishing in Cook […]
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More Alaskan forests are burning, not just due to climate change
Populated areas are seeing a large increase in wildfire, despite suppression efforts.
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Finding a confluence on the Bright Angel Trail
The young man who looked like he was from the Middle East was sitting against the wall of the Grand Canyon, a Go-Pro camera strapped to his chest. My aching quads begged for a break, so I stopped, said hello, and pulled out my own camera lest he think I was intruding. He had chosen a […]
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New border security bill would roll back public lands protections
Sen. John McCain’s proposal would give Border Patrol more immediate access to sensitive borderlands.
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Are cows drinking the West dry?
On a recent trip to California, I visited the North Coast, where spring usually means green hills with deep grass strewn with lupine and bright orange poppies bobbing in sea breezes. This year, we found stunted grass, browning hills and the local news obsessing on the worst drought in California’s recorded history. Suddenly, the most […]
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Western states wrestle with Obama’s Clean Power Plan
Closed-door sessions on the EPA’s proposal to cut coal-fired power plant emissions.
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
Wins for workers
Western cities lead the national movement for a higher minimum wage.
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
Wasting disease in wildlife inches toward Yellowstone
The illness affects moose, elk and deer and may be carried by long-distance migrations.
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
Walking the damp upper corners of America
This mysterious Oregon forest awakens hope in a local writer.
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
The view from 31,000 feet: A philosopher looks at fracking
I was flying the red-eye home to Portland, when the pilot spoke over the intercom. “We are currently over North Dakota. Below us are the famous Bakken shale-oil fracking fields.” I looked down into the night. As far as I could see toward every horizon, the plain was studded with flames — oil rigs flaring […]
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
The Los Angeles wetland wars
Environmentalists saved a wetland from developers a decade ago. Now they’re trying to save it from each other.
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
The Latest: New Navajo president may halt a remote development
Russell Begaye is an opponent of the proposed Grand Canyon Escalade $1 billion tourism project.
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
The Latest: New incentives for quieter aircraft in the Grand Canyon
More commercial flights are expected this year, if they meet federal noise standards.
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
Short on Klamath reporting
“Plague on the Klamath” (HCN, 4/27/15) was good so far as it went. It did not, however, give readers a full view of salmon disease on the Klamath River, nor of water management and pollution issues related to disease outbreaks. Not mentioned, for example, is that most of the young salmon born in Klamath River […]
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
Rebel-rousers
Articles and editorials about the threat to public access are springing up in outdoor and conservation magazines with regularity now (“Westerners need to stand up for public lands,” HCN, 4/27/15). Americans are beginning to get it: The threat is real. Do we want the European model, where private ownership of the woods and waters prevails, or do […]
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
Our land
I grow tired of hearing news bites about people or industries “standing up to the government” regarding land use without accurate information (“Checking in on Cliven Bundy,” HCN, 4/27/15). Cliven Bundy is nothing but a mooch and a thief. The public lands are owned by every American citizen, and we pay to have government representatives […]
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
Fisher-poets of the pale tide
A gathering of maritime minstrels on the Oregon coast.