An off-roading conservationist navigates some gnarly landscape on the road to more protection for the Utah desert.
Motorheads gone wild
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Love that dirty river
Every year, I dutifully respond to those High Country News reader surveys in the fervent hope that you will devote more of your valuable real estate to urban-oriented stories about our region’s social injustices. Well, there is a Santa Claus, and he delivered a wonderful gift to me in the form of Daniel Person’s pitch-perfect “River of No Return” […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Farmers for clear water rule
I read your coverage of the proposed new clean water ruling by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with interest (“Muddy waters of the U.S.,” HCN, 6/23/14; “Is the Clean Water Act under attack?” hcn.org, 6/24/14), and wish to add a few sentiments to the mix. For more than 100 years, the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
An artist’s road to redemption
The PainterPeter Heller288 pages, hardcover:$24.95.Alfred A. Knopf, 2014. If it’s possible to paint in words alone, to create a wildly colorful story of grief in sentences layered like one of van Gogh’s swirling night scenes, Colorado author Peter Heller accomplishes it in his second novel, The Painter, narrated by artist Jim Stegner. A fly fisherman […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
A wild paradox
I first encountered wilderness in the early ’80s, when many of the law’s backers and I were purists. I was backpacking for the first time, exploring West Virginia’s Cranberry Wilderness. I have always used crutches to get around and had never carried a pack for any distance. The experience was more difficult than I anticipated. […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
A historic moment for the Clean Air Act
How it arrived and how much it matters for the climate.
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Is coal dead?
Which plants are slated for closure or switches to natural gas.
Posted inGoat
Washington’s new clean-water plan is a mixed bag
Washington’s governor last week announced a bold approach for creating cleaner, safer waters for fish and the people who eat them. Unless he didn’t. Every day, the state’s Department of Health releases a map of waterways so polluted that restrictions are placed on the amount and types of fish people should eat. Washington has many […]
Posted inArticles
The privatization of public campground management
All the info you need to decide whether you love or hate that the Forest Service uses concessionaires.
Posted inArticles
Concessionaire Campgrounds: An Explainer
The Privatization of public campgrounds | Create Infographics
Posted inGoat
California gears up to fine water wasters: Should we turn our neighbors in?
Five years ago, when south-central Texas was suffering through its driest year in more than a century, public officials in the city of San Antonio turned in desperation to a new tactic to enforce water conservation: They dispatched the police. From April of 2009 and on through the rest of the year, off-duty officers and […]
Posted inWotr
How Amazon taught Grand Junction a valuable lesson
Small businesses and nonprofits have a lot in common: They operate on thin margins, develop strong local ties and support their communities’ economic and social wellbeing. But what happens to those strong bonds when an online retailing giant comes in with a deal that benefits one side and threatens the other? That was the question […]
Posted inGoat
This hummingbird’s survival hinges on precipitation, new study shows
Every year, the rufous hummingbird – a tiny fire-colored ball of feathers that weighs just three grams – flies up to 3,900 miles from its winter home in Mexico all the way to Alaska. At about three inches long, the rufous takes one of the longest migratory journeys of any bird its size. Over the past several […]
Posted inGoat
Grasshopper plagues: agricultural nightmare or ecological boon?
In early June, meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, New Mexico, were puzzled: There was a big splotch on the radar that didn’t look like any weather system they’d ever seen. Maybe their software had a bug? Turns out, the dark green blob hovering over Albuquerque wasn’t a software glitch at all but […]
Posted inWotr
Boise may be low profile, but we’re high-tech
Over the years, whenever I’ve tried to calculate the cost-benefit analysis of living in a small town rather than a metropolis, the small town has always looked like the better choice. It used to be that cultural amenities and cosmopolitanism gave big cities significant boosts in this either/or match-up, but developments in technology have changed […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
The Latest: Interior commits to restoring bison on select lands
BackstoryJust a few free-roaming bison herds remain in the West. Roughly 4,000 bison inhabit Yellowstone, but they are hindered by ranchers who fear they spread brucellosis, which can cause cattle miscarriages. The park and state agencies limit the herd’s roaming and remove “excess” animals by hunting, slaughter and transplanting to other areas (“The Killing Fields,” […]
Posted inArticles
North Dakota wrestles with radioactive oilfield waste
Regulators look at raising the limit for radiation amid a rash of illegal dumping.