A court settlement will make it harder for companies to hide chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.
Fewer trade secrets for Wyoming fracking fluid
Posted inArticles
Canada’s mining boom spills into U.S. waters
How do you protect a river that begins in another country?
Posted inArticles
Crude tactics worked against the sage grouse
For years now, the oil and gas industry has been stirring up trouble for sage grouse. The possibility that the prairie-dwelling birds might receive Endangered Species Act protection gives oil executives high-grade anxiety. It would threaten jobs, they say. It would ruin the economy. It would reduce profits. All the noise the industry has made […]
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Feds demand payback for misused stimulus funds
Millions of dollars for carbon sequestration that apparently never happened.
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The increasingly unequal West
Rich get richer while everyone else wallows in a region once known to be economically egalitarian.
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Dry January means more drought across West
After a rainy December, many states now have lower-than-normal snowpacks.
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A wilderness bill for both sides of the aisle
U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson tries another Boulder-White Clouds bill in Idaho.
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Oil pipelines are going to keep breaking in rivers
On the second day of July in 2011, I walked down to my hay fields to see if the Yellowstone River had flooded its banks. It had — but so had crude oil leaking from Exxon’s Silvertip Pipeline, which runs underneath the river upstream from my farm south of Billings, Montana. That was the beginning […]
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A new film tells the story of the Klamath River agreements
Republican lawmaker-turned-filmmaker, Jason Atkinson on why conservation doesn’t have to be a partisan issue.
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Plunging oil prices are saving Alaskan ecosystems — for now
The new governor shelves controversial roads, dams and other developments.
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Let’s talk about the “Z” word
I am a rancher in a ranching community, so I imagine you’re not surprised to learn that we don’t like anyone else to tell us what we can do with our land. This worked when we all raised cattle. Even when some folks started raising sheep or buffalo, we generally got along. The requirements of […]
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Attacks on federal research funding anger scientists
Politicians lay siege to the National Science Foundation.
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Why we risked getting arrested in Utah
Twenty-five people who took direct action last summer to stop a tar sands strip mine on Utah’s East Tavaputs Plateau accepted plea deals on Jan. 25 to avoid more serious charges such as “felony riot.” We took the risk of going to prison in the first place because we felt we’d become the last line […]
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National forests to decide where snowmobiles are welcome
A new rule requires the government to specify areas for winter motorized users.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
Yellowstone’s climate threat
Your piece on the differing responses to wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone was a welcome change from the oversimplified accounts that have dominated media coverage (“Have returning wolves really saved Yellowstone?” HCN 12/8/14). One important factor was missing, even though it is likely to become the most critical one: climatic change. Our University of New […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
Why are environmentalists mad at Jerry Brown?
The California governor has made bold moves on climate — but greens are disgruntled.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
We’re hiring – in D.C.!
HCN needs a D.C. correspondent; visitors came to call.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
Tricky fluency
I’m always pleased to find articles in HCN devoted to Native American issues, which is why I was glad to read a piece covering the Navajo Nation’s plight concerning language fluency and the eligibility of presidential candidates (“A question of fluency,” 12/22/14). And while the article was quite accurate in describing the now-obvious divisions among […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
Thrill of the dust hunt
Imagine my surprise at seeing the frontispiece of my doctoral dissertation on the cover of High Country News (“The Dust Detectives,” 12/22/14). To those who study it, the atmospheric transport of dust and pollution is a truly exciting detective drama, full of twists and new discoveries. It is a field both driven by and motivating imaginative […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2015: This Land is Their Land
This land is whose land?
Every week, the editors of High Country News sit in a small, lime-sherbet-colored conference room and debate what stories we should cover. Should we tackle legalized marijuana, since the West is leading the charge, or has that story become too “national?” How about North Dakota’s response to the drop in oil prices — is it […]