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. […]
Putin’s Crimean invasion reaches into the West’s gas patch
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Fallon, Nevada’s deadly legacy
In a small town once plagued by childhood cancer, some families still search for answers.
Posted inGoat
Are coal companies paying fair market value for leases on public lands?
Coal boosters are fond of decrying the Obama Administration’s supposed “War on Coal” – and to be sure, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations limiting carbon emissions from power plants aren’t doing industry any favors. But if there truly exists a federal campaign to depose King Coal, somebody in the administration forgot to tell the Bureau […]
Posted inGoat
Illegal marijuana cultivation is devastating California’s public lands
Scattered throughout California’s public forests, authorities found 315,000 feet of plastic hose, 19,000 pounds of fertilizer and 180,000 pounds of trash on more than 300 illegal marijuana plantations in 2012 alone. The tally comes from a new video by the U.S. Forest Service, describing the extensive and alarming damage caused by “trespass grows” hidden within […]
Posted inGoat
Even unpopular national parks are economic engines
Last summer, I visited Rocky Mountain National Park for the first time and, to be frank, was a little disgusted. Not by the park itself – the mountains were beautiful, even if the beetle-kill and $20 backcountry permits were disheartening – but by the salt-water-taffy-munching, airbrushed-tee-shirt-wearing crowd glutting the park’s gateway community of Estes Park, […]
Posted inGoat
What I learned from Western royalty
During a symposium on natural resources and sustainability last Friday at University of Colorado, Boulder, law professor Charles Wilkinson took a look at a group of panelists that included two former secretaries of Interior, and in a moment of appreciation for their service, declared them “Western royalty.” No one said anything particularly groundbreaking at the […]
Posted inWotr
Utah can boast of a living work of art
Visiting a remote work of art at the Great Salt Lake –– Robert Smithson’s brilliant Spiral Jetty.
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
The geoglyph guardian
Alfredo Figueroa fights to protect ancient land art in southern California.
Posted inGoat
Durango: The Best … town for those with lots of cash
For the third time in less than two years, I’ve been perusing the classifieds for a place for my family to rent in Durango, Colo., the town in which I grew up. Each time the pickings get slimmer, the prices get higher, and the process gets more agonizing. We’ve been driven to this masochistic ritual […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art: 1775-2012
Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art, 1775-2012Barbara C. Matilsky, 144 pages, paperback: $39.95. Whatcom Museum, 2013 When intrepid artists first ventured to the poles two centuries ago, they returned with paintings and sketches that made the region’s otherworldly starkness seem elegant and timeless. More recently, artists portray a landscape that is running out […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
The little fish that could
An endangered Oregon minnow recovers, while many native fish still struggle.
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
The legend behind Salvation Mountain
At the entrance to the self-proclaimed “last free place on earth” – Slab City, a squatter camp in California’s Imperial Valley – stands Salvation Mountain, its slopes painted with biblical quotations and its peak topped with a giant white cross. The candy-colored hill is just a few stories high, but to the drifters, dreamers and […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
The Latest: New EPA rules for diesel in fracking
BackstoryHydraulic fracturing – the injection of water, sand and chemicals into the ground to extract oil and natural gas – has sparked fears of groundwater contamination in rural communities like Pavillion, Wyo. (“Hydrofracked: One man’s quest for answers about natural gas drilling,” HCN, 6/27/11). Diesel is one of the more controversial ingredients used in some […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Silver (state) bullet
A proposed Mexico-to-Canada highway gets mixed reactions.
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Not the Hanford I knew
I worked at Hanford for a few years in the late ’50s and early ’60s (“The Hanford Whistleblowers,” HCN, 2/3/14). Some days, as we traveled to the reactor areas, you could see Nike missiles on the ridge across the Columbia River. The missiles were there to protect the site from air attack. We would have […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
My time on the tank farms
In the early ’70s, I landed a job with ARCO, a contractor at the time overseeing tank farms (“The Hanford Whistleblowers,” HCN, 2/3/14). Working at the nukes was the best paying job around and it was what our dads did. Growing up in Richland, we walked our dads to the bus stop, and watched them […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Looking after we leap
In early January, the Elk River near Charleston, W.V., began to smell of licorice. The source of the strange odor was a steel tank with a small hole that leaked thousands of gallons of crude 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, a chemical used in coal processing, into the river, just upstream of an intake for Charleston’s municipal water […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Hope and history
In The Light Of JusticeWalter Echo-Hawk325 pages, softcover: $19.95.Fulcrum Publishing, 2013. It’s unthinkable that kids in America would ever be allowed to play “slaves and masters,” writes Walter Echo-Hawk, but we don’t see anything wrong with Junior strapping on the trusty ol’ cap-shooters for a game of “cowboys and Indians.” Echo-Hawk, a Pawnee tribal member […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2014: Fallon’s deadly legacy
Goodbye, Hello
In January, our board of directors gathered by phone and Web to talk with staff about High Country News‘ progress over the last four months. There’s good news: Print and digital subscriptions are up 1,000 from last year, our coffers are bursting with end-of-year donations (thanks to all who contributed!), and our redesigned website should […]