BackstoryThe Hanford Site, a vast nuclear complex along Washington’s Columbia River that once produced plutonium for warheads, has come under fire from dozens of whistleblowers in its 71-year history. In recent decades, scientists and other involved experts have criticized the $40 billion cleanup effort, citing mismanagement and other problems, including releases of airborne cancer-causing radionuclides and […]
The Latest: Another Hanford whistleblower fired
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
The farm bill and the precipitous decline of monarch butterflies
The fate of pollinators like monarchs is intertwined with federal policy.
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
Ordinary people
Return to OakpineRon Carlson272 pages, hardcover: $18.90.Viking Press, 2013. Welcome to Oakpine, a fictional small town on Wyoming’s eastern plains where four high school pals reunite in 1999, after 30 years spent leading very separate lives. In his latest novel, Return to Oakpine, the award-winning author Ron Carlson tells a moving but quiet tale about […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
It’s spring break time again!
In mid-March, as snow melts and crocuses bloom in our hometown of Paonia, Colo., HCN staff takes one of our four annual publishing breaks. Look for the next issue, a special issue on unusual travel experiences around the West, to hit your mailbox around April 14. And in the meantime, visit hcn.org for fresh news […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
Cracks in the urban-chic facade
The Residue YearsMitchell S. Jackson352 pages, hardcover: $26.Bloomsbury USA, 2013. Today, most people who think of Portland, Ore., picture charismatic bridges spanning the sparkling Willamette River, cozy coffeehouses and brewpubs on rain-slick streets, and passionate environmentalists bicycling to farmers markets. But behind the scenes, Portland in the 1990s teemed with crack dealers and users willing […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
Absurdly high rents in North Dakota, feral chihuahuas, and “meth” candy in Albuquerque.
THE HOUSING MARKETIf you’re paying $4,500 per month in apartment rent, you’d expect to have a great view, wouldn’t you? Perhaps the red towers of Golden Gate Bridge rising majestically from the fog? Or joggers in beautiful Central Park, far below your penthouse suite? These days, however, a high-priced apartment is just as likely to […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
A solution to our biological crisis
I was pleased to see the sobering article by Emily Guerin, “Crisis biology,” regarding the fungal diseases now wiping out the world’s amphibians and bats (HCN, 2/17/14). Here in California, we import some 2 million American bullfrogs for human consumption, sold mostly in the state’s many “Chinatown” live-animal food markets. The majority of the market […]
Posted inGoat
Crane migration depends on agriculture and sustainable groundwater management
Last Friday morning, as a cold sun struggled to rise above the eastern wall of the San Luis Valley – the 125-mile-long, 7,000-foot-high, Oklahoma-flat basin that lies between the San Juans and the Sange de Cristos in southern Colorado – a throng of birdwatchers climbed aboard a yellow school bus to observe one of the […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2014: When California Kicks Coal
Geoduck fishermen switch to urchins off Washington’s coast
China banned West Coast shellfish after finding traces of toxins.
Posted inGoat
Wildfire mitigation program helps homeowners create safer communities
With years of experience bracing for wildfire along Colorado’s Front Range, it’s no surprise that Boulder County is launching a new program – Wildfire Partners – that may mean the start of a paradigm shift in wildfire mitigation. “The old approach was firefighters were responsible for saving homes from wildfire,” said Jim Webster, Wildfire Partners’ […]
Posted inWotr
When poisoning is the solution
A victory for an endangered fish, though some environmentalists fought hard to prevent it.
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Birthday of the burning boot
Making peace with growing older, on a hike near Patagonia, Arizona.
Posted inGoat
Los Angeles City Council votes for a fracking moratorium — and hopes the state follows suit
During the suddenly rainy last week in February, the Los Angeles City Council voted to ban fracking within city limits. It might have seemed like an academic exercise, just as it did a few years ago, when the five-person city council of Beverly Hills, Calif., voted four to one to quash the city’s oil industry […]
Posted inGoat
Water rights bill pits ski industry against conservationists
The German philosopher with the impressively bushy mustache, Friedrich Nietzsche (below), said that all things are subject to interpretation. Had he lived in the Western U.S., he might have tacked on a clause: “Especially when it comes to water policy.” A House bill to be voted on this week hammers his point home, with policy […]
Posted inGoat
Avalanches weren’t – and aren’t – only a backcountry threat
In the handful of times I’ve visited Missoula, Montana, the grassy slopes of neighboring L- and M-emblazoned Mounts Jumbo and Sentinel have never looked any more threatening to me than the hogbacked foothills that yaw out of the ground west of Boulder, Colorado, my hometown. Velvety, yes. Curved like a set of relaxed shoulders, yes. […]
Posted inWotr
Let’s not bring Las Vegas to Grand Canyon
Critique of a developer’s plan to haul tourists on a tramway to the Colorado River.
Posted inArticles
KDNK Radio speaks with writer Sierra Crane-Murdoch
In the current issue of High Country News, contributing editor Sierra Crane-Murdoch tells a sprawling tale of contamination, cancer and cover up as she tries to unravel the unsolved mystery of the Fallon, Nevada cancer cluster. For the latest edition of KDNK Radio’s Sounds of the High Country, Nelson Harvey spoke with Murdoch about what […]
Posted inGoat
Putin’s Crimean invasion reaches into the West’s gas patch
When Russian troops invaded Crimea at the end of February, I couldn’t help but think back to a similar invasion 30 years ago, when Soviet paratroopers descended on the high school grounds in Calumet, Colo., their Kalashnikov’s blazing. They were joined by Nicaraguan and Cuban troops and aided by surgical nuke strikes on important cities. […]