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 […]
Water rights bill pits ski industry against conservationists
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 […]
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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. […]
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.
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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, […]
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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.
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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 […]