What happens when you give a homeless person a subsidized apartment? The answer isn’t as straightforward as you might think. But in Utah, it’s proven a resounding success – out of 17 chronically homeless people who took part in the state’s 2005 pilot program, all were still off the streets two years later, spurring a […]
Tale of two states: Utah’s a model for reducing homelessness, Wyoming lags behind
Posted inWotr
Megaloads and wild-and-scenic rivers don’t mix
Opinion: These loads of mining equipment to Canada don’t belong on a narrow, scenic road that winds through my part of Idaho.
Posted inArticles
Are Yellowstone grizzlies ready for delisting?
A recent study of the bears’ diets has spurred a move toward ending endangered protections.
Posted inWotr
Gliding past while bullets fly
Rafting the Yellowstone River while hunters shoot ducks out of the sky.
Posted inGoat
Hopi lawsuit against wastewater snowmaking gets green light in Arizona
The Arizona Supreme Court has greenlighted a lawsuit that the Hopi Tribe brought against the city of Flagstaff, Ariz. for selling wastewater to a local ski resort to make fake snow. In a procedural victory, the tribe has won the right to proceed with its lawsuit challenging Flagstaff’s 2002 decision to sell reclaimed wastewater to […]
Posted inWotr
On the ground with economies built on snow
It has been snowing in Crested Butte, Colo., where people pray and dance for snow; the whole winter economy is predicated on snow. Crested Butte’s old miners used to call snow “the only crop that never failed.” They also used to say, “You can’t eat the scenery.” But Crested Butte and most mountain communities have […]
Posted inGoat
If the gas industry wants enviro cred, it should embrace methane regulation
Shift more of the nation off coal-powered electricity and onto that supplied by natural gas, and what do you get? A significant reduction in the carbon emissions driving the alarming climatic shifts we already experience in our daily lives. That’s the theory anyway, based on the fact that natural gas produces about half the carbon […]
Posted inGoat
What the West would look like with state boundaries drawn by culture, population, or watersheds
Here at High Country News, some of us recently had a lively discussion about our slogan: “for people who care about the American West.” After 43 years, is it still the best phrase to convey who we are and what we do? We added the “American” to that slogan some years ago, realizing that in […]
Posted inGoat
What would lifting the crude oil export ban mean for pump prices and energy independence?
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 […]
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. […]
Posted inGoat
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 […]
Posted inGoat
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 […]
Posted inGoat
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, […]