As an avid outdoor user, I have contributed many hours to helping the Bureau of Land Management clean up the numerous “poor man” shooting areas on lands near our community (“Guns, politics and saguaros,” HCN, 12/9/13). With a crew of volunteers, we can fill a 20-foot container in a morning, only to return to fresh trash […]
Put your trash bags where your mouth is
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
Public-land users and abusers
I own property that borders several thousand acres of national forest, and with my neighbors control the area’s access road (“Public land, locked up,” HCN, 12/9/13). These public lands are used for grazing and for recreation. We allow public access, but are also aware that the public is basically clueless when it comes to land […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
HCN welcomes new interns
We’re delighted that stellar intern Krista Langlois is staying for another six months as our latest editorial fellow. And two new interns have arrived for a half-year of journalism boot camp. Christi Turner isn’t just thrilled to be out West – she’s pleased to be back in the United States. A Rhode Island native who […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
Drought brings new dust storms to the geographic heart of the Dust Bowl
A dust storm hit, an’ it hit like thunder;It dusted us over, an’ it covered us under;Blocked out the traffic an’ blocked out the sun,Straight for home all the people did run… That’s how folksinger Woody Guthrie described the walls of airborne earth that rolled across the Texas Panhandle during the drought-ravaged 1930s. But he […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 2014: The Hanford Whistleblowers
A new cowboy reality show, city dwellers encounter peregrine falcons and a snowboarder harasses a moose
THE WESTWatch out, ranching families, a “docu-reality” television company wants to cast you in a new series, but only if your personalities can be described as “dynamic, engaging and uninhibited.” Tim Marema, whose blog, AgricultureProud, helped spread the word, found much of the producers’ concept laughable, especially the requirement that “All members of the family […]
Posted inGoat
‘Ag-gag’ law that thwarts investigations on factory farms is challenged in Utah
Last year was a good one for whistleblowers on factory farms: not one of the 11 “ag-gag” bills introduced across the U.S. in 2013 became law, and so far in 2014 two such bills, in the New Hampshire and Indiana legislatures, have been defeated by animal rights activists. What agribusiness calls farm protection laws – […]
Posted inGoat
New farm bill still favors big ag
We’ve been following the glacial progress of the latest Farm Bill for three years now. This massive bill, passed every five years, doles out nearly $1 trillion for food stamps and school lunches, farm subsidies, and conservation programs. The Farm Bill got its start during the Dust Bowl years, when it was meant as temporary […]
Posted inGoat
For better or worse, feds’ Columbia River Salmon plan stays the course
There’s no arguing that salmon and steelhead in the Columbia and Snake Rivers have had a tough century. Habitat loss, overfishing, and, most of all, dam construction have reduced the prodigious runs, which once averaged 16 million fish per year, to a fraction of their former glory. What’s up for debate is whether the federal […]
Posted inArticles
KDNK Radio speaks with HCN reporter Kevin Taylor
The number of community gardens in the U.S. has been growing in recent years as more people take an interest in producing at least some of their own food. Yet in some western communities, a new and radical approach to communal agriculture is taking root: the edible forest garden. KDNK Radio’s Nelson Harvey spoke with […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
How Vancouver, B.C. became North America’s smart-growth leader
It wasn’t visionary city officials; it was a movement to save the city’s ethnic Chinese neighborhoods in the ’60s.
Posted inWotr
Got a local issue? Here’s how to organize
How a small group of people committed to academic freedom organized to turn around a school district.
Posted inGoat
Preserving ancient art in land marked for solar energy development
Like a great eye of reflective silicon, the largest utility-scale power plant in the United States is rapidly materializing in the Mojave Desert. According to company officials, when fully complete, the BrightSource Ivanpah Solar Power Facility will come on line early this year, supplying nearly 400 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 140,000 homes during […]
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
Oilfield workers on Facebook, dynamite in a sperm whale, and more.
NORTH DAKOTA, MONTANAThere’s now a brilliant, low-cost way to start a newspaper smack in the middle of nowhere: Just open up a Facebook page or two, and share what you know and what you’d like to know more about. Ask local readers to pitch in with Smartphone photos and tips, and voilà! You’re in business, […]
Posted inGoat
Union Address: Climate change still real, federal action still lacking
For any American who believes that climate change is not only real but one of the most pressing issues of our time, it’s oddly invigorating to hear one’s President declare the debate “settled,” as Obama did last night in his State of the Union address. “Climate change is a fact,” he followed. It’s exciting to […]
Posted inGoat
BLM considers grassroots land use plan that would limit drilling in western Colorado
Mark Waltermire squints in the winter sunlight, craning his neck to take in the view from his vegetable farm in Hotchkiss, Colo. He jabs his finger toward a mesa: “There,” he says. “And up in there.” Palm to the sky, he makes a sweeping gesture, encompassing the flat-bottomed valley, the staggered mesas; the patchwork of […]
Posted inArticles
Community responds to a film on its own ill-fated uranium mill
Residents from Montrose County, Colorado’s West End recently gathered for a screening of “Uranium Drive-In,” a documentary that tells the story of the ill-fated Piñon Ridge Uranium Mill, and a tight-knit community desperate for jobs and some hint of a brighter economy. KVNF Radio’s Travis Bubenik was on hand for the screening at the New […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t forget what the Exxon Valdez taught us
On the regulatory laxness that led to the spilling of 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound 25 years ago.
Posted inJanuary 20, 2014: Building a More Sustainable West, One City at a Time
A (very small) room with a view
Microhousing catches on in Seattle and other Western cities.
Posted inGoat
In a new study, megafauna more likely to feel climate impacts than smaller species
Climate change has always picked winners and losers from the animal world. Some, like unbearably cute, mountain-dwelling pikas are already retreating from lower, warmer elevations in places like Yosemite National Park, and heading for cooler heights. Beyond existing research on how climate change is responsible for certain species, like pikas or polar bears, shifting elevation, […]
Posted inGoat
Vegas’ new water czar has a tough row to hoe
John Entsminger has his work cut out for him, to put it mildly. He will soon be responsible for keeping Las Vegas and its associated sprawl from drying up and evaporating back into the desert. Current Southern Nevada Water Authority director Pat Mulroy, notorious throughout the West for her water-grabbing ways, hand-picked Entsminger to be […]