Sometimes it seems as if the energy industry wants to turn the New World back into a resource colony for the rest of the globe. First, coal companies, seeing a reduction in demand domestically, tried to sell more coal overseas. Then, thanks to the shale gas glut, the fossil fuel industry has been trying to […]
What would lifting the crude oil export ban mean for pump prices and energy independence?
Posted inGoat
As analog film grows obsolete, Western towns struggle to keep theaters afloat
One snowy evening over the holidays, I sat down for a beer with screenwriter Susan Shilliday (“Legends of the Fall”), who moved from Los Angeles to rural western Massachusetts eight years ago to run a used bookstore. We were discussing how difficult it is for independent booksellers to stay in business when Susan brought up […]
Posted inGoat
49-million-year-old cockroach fossils discovered in Colorado
Three years ago, Slovakian paleontologist Peter Vrsansky found a surprise in a shipment of fossils from Rifle, Colo. Hidden in the collection was an unexpected new peek into the insect world during the Eocene epoch, 50 million years ago. Vrsansky discovered four new species of Ectobius cockroach that are five million years older – and […]
Posted inWotr
Who speaks for the sage grouse?
Across the West, politicians and oil and gas industry spokesmen are wringing their hands, shaking their heads and saying “no” to Bureau of Land Management proposals to set aside large swaths of land for the greater sage grouse, and for federal plans to list the separate Gunnison sage grouse as an endangered species. Colorado Gov. […]
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West’s building and population growth is not yet back to pre-Recession levels
When I started working for High Country News eight years ago this month, there was no shortage of issues to write about. Natural gas drilling was going nuts, nearly every sector of the economy was on fire and immigrants were streaming through the desert to live the dream. Perhaps most bewildering to me, however, were […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
Butcher of Heartache on the Bering Sea
A former newspaper copyeditor finds his way onboard a fishing boat.
Posted inGoat
New Year brings protections for California bobcats and atonement for a Joshua Tree conservationist
Wolves in several Western states entered 2014 in the crosshairs of hunters, but California’s bobcats got a reprieve – thanks in large part to one Joshua Tree landowner and conservationist. The Bobcat Protection Act of 2013 (AB 1213), introduced in March by Santa Monica assemblyman Richard Bloom (D), went into effect January 1. It prohibits […]
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Forecast for drought continues Westwide
El Nido is a small settlement of some 300 souls located almost right in the middle of California, in the grand agricultural enterprise known as the San Joaquin Valley. Translated into English, El Nido means “the nest.” It’s a fitting name for the place, though its founders couldn’t have foreseen how. Today, El Nido is […]
Posted inJanuary 3, 1975: Western site sought for A-wastes
N. Great Plains report: preview of disaster?
Coal development in the Northern Great Plains already seems to be progressing at a level higher than anticipated when the Northern Great Plains Resource Program completed its draft interim report last fall. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/7.1/download-entire-issue
Posted inAugust 1, 1975: Power plant ahead
Clif Merritt: he leads from behind
Clifton Merritt, the western regional director of the Wilderness Society, is an atypical environmental leader — not flashy or full of fire and brimstone, but good at motivating people positively. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/7.16/download-entire-issue
Posted inWotr
The sounds of silence, Eastern style
I once read about a lock-tender who spent his life accompanied by the sound of rushing water going over the lock’s dam. Then, the dam was taken down, ending a lifetime of constant background noise, which, although perhaps a pleasant-enough sound, was still, well, constant. His greatest surprise was finally being able to hear the birds. I […]
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Navajo Nation’s purchase of a New Mexico coalmine is a mixed bag
The Navajo Nation got coal for Christmas this year – literally. On December 30, a Navajo tribal corporation finally completed its drawn-out purchase of the Navajo Mine, the sole supplier of coal to New Mexico’s Four Corners Power Plant. Depending on whom you ask, this is either a historic milestone for tribal energy independence, […]
Posted inMay 21, 1976: Navajo Nation faces development
Don Redfearn, elk refuge manager
Don Redfearn manages the wintering ground for the largest elk herd in North America — the National Elk Refuge outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/8.11/download-entire-issue
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
Tribes struggle to house their ‘invisibly homeless’ veterans
Red tape makes it difficult for veterans in Indian Country to access a key federal assistance program.
Posted inGoat
As the economy recovers, many Westerners are left behind
Las Vegas is filled with symbols of how drastically the economic landscape of the West has changed over the past decade. Drive out into the city’s fringes, and you’ll see vast swaths of land for which developers — visions of master-planned tract home communities dancing in their heads — paid the Bureau of Land Management […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Out on Misfits Flat
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. The quintessential Nevada film is John Huston’s 1961 picture The Misfits, starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift. The movie had its origins in playwright Arthur Miller’s trip to Nevada in 1956. While […]
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
The fignificent fig man
Lloyd Kreitzer’s journey as New Mexico’s premier fig grower.
Posted inDecember 16, 1977: Yellowcake spilled; clean up slow, disorganized
Family gaining independence with sun, wind, wood
The Ricks family in Rexburg, Idaho experiments with new technology and makes much of it themselves, including an all-electric car. Download entire issue to view this article: http://www.hcn.org/issues/9.24/download-entire-issue
Posted inDecember 23, 2013: Beauty or Beast
Coalbed methane bust leaves thousands of orphaned gas wells in Wyoming
And the state is starting to come to terms with an orphaned gas well problem.
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The price of a loud world: How road noise harms birds
Last fall, a team of researchers from Idaho’s Boise State University hiked into the mountains outside of town with backpacks full of batteries and speakers. The unusual cargo was not for a backcountry dance party, but rather for a unique experiment to determine the impact of road noise on migratory birds. The scientists hung speakers […]