Environmental groups file suit over caribou habitat.
The Latest: Woodland caribou are in danger of disappearing from the U.S.
Posted inGoat
“Idiot-proof” citizen science results in 16 new diatom species
Loren Bahls is not your typical retiree. After stepping down as head of water quality management for the state of Montana in 1996 – then retiring again from private consulting in 2009 – Bahls finally found time to pursue his real passion: Tiny, glass-walled microbes called diatoms that practically cover the surface of the Earth. […]
Posted inGoat
Immigration reform bills still give feds rein to trample border ecology
The environmental onslaught caused by the construction of the U.S.-Mexico border fence may have started with a mouse. When the federal government first built a section of border fence south of San Diego in 1990, it left nearby grasses – habitat to an imperiled mouse – to grow long to comply with the Endangered Species […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
New Mexico’s groundwater protections may take a hit
The state has long been a leader in this area – is that about to change?
Posted inWotr
Not all endangered species live in the forest
Struggling individuals in the rural West deserve as much support as, say, grizzlies.
Posted inGoat
California’s energy storage requirement may revolutionize the grid
The spring of 2011 was wetter than usual in the Pacific Northwest. A huge snow year was followed by rain, and during the peak runoff water was ripping through the hydroelectric turbines on Bonneville Power Administration’s dams. Spring is also the windy season, and hundreds of new turbines in the region were also pumping juice […]
Posted inWotr
Fresh look at the wolf-grizzly relationship
An essay on the Yellowstone study that shows these predators’ fascinating survival dance.
Posted inGoat
Forest Service rules catch up with the growth of year-round activities at ski resorts
After spending a day of mountain biking on the Colorado Trail this summer, I stopped near my car to watch the tourist season circus at Copper Mountain’s base area. The crowd milled around a bungee-and-trampoline contraption, a mini golf course and a concert stage that blared mediocre funk music. Signs along the trail pointed “mountain […]
Posted inGoat
After South Dakota’s deadly whiteout, a look at blizzards past
It began as unseasonably warm weather – 80-degree temperatures edging into the last couple of weeks before western South Dakota ranchers were to round up their summer-fat cattle, bring some to market and move the rest to closer-to-home pastures with gullies and trees for shelter against the brutal winter months ahead. The cows perhaps didn’t […]
Posted inWotr
The bullet shortage: a self-fulfilling prophecy
It started with a fear of government intervention and ends with hoarding.
Posted inGoat
Nitrogen pollution at critical levels in dozens of national parks
We’ve had national parks on the brain a lot lately as we slogged through 16 days of federal shutdown. It’s been an economic burden to gateway communities and a frustration to tourists. But a depressingly dysfunctional government isn’t the only thing plaguing our parks. A new study shows that airborne nitrogen pollution is fundamentally changing the […]
Posted inGoat
The shutdown is over but its impacts linger
The shutdown is over. Federal employees are going back to work, with back pay. Journalists and data geeks can access information on census.gov and usgs.gov. Tourists are once again able to see national parks. And the National Zoo’s Panda Cam – praise be! – has returned to the air. Maybe we can just chalk all […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
A new Apache homeland in New Mexico?
An Okie Apache fights his kin to build a casino and bring his people home.
Posted inGoat
Oil spill, eagles and fracking: the news you missed during the shutdown
The staff of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was welcomed to work yesterday by a “coffee cake bite”-bearing Joe Biden, and a grinning administrator so thrilled to have her employees back on the job she jumped up and down as they entered the building. There wasn’t, I expect, a lot of jumping and grinning happening […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2013: The New Geronimo?
Dispatch from Twiggley Island: an essay
Neighbors band together to survive after the Colorado floods.
Posted inGoat
Pipelines aren’t the only way to ship oil – rail’s on the rise
What do melting sea ice, fiery train wrecks and the Bakken oil boom have in common? No, they’re not part of the latest Hollywood blockbuster – although if I came across a trailer showing George Clooney as a roughneck leaping from a flaming train onto an ice floe with an angry polar bear, you better […]
Posted inGoat
Painkiller prescriptions skyrocket, endangering veterans
Ricky Green was 43 when he accidentally overdosed on pain medication for a lingering back injury from the first Gulf War. He died in his sleep in September 2011. Just a month earlier, he had asked his Veterans Affairs doctors to decrease the dose of three painkillers he was taking, but the physicians told him […]
Posted inWotr
Stand up for wildland firefighters
There’s a practical way to show respect for wildland firefighters who put their lives on the line for us.
Posted inGoat
Don’t blame rangers for closed public lands
We’re now on Day 15 of the shutdown. The consequences of suspending so many of the government’s daily operations continue to ripple outward (a few of the odder side effects: new beers can’t be approved; Alaskan fishermen can’t catch crabs; furloughed federal workers are growing #shutdownbeards). The closures have, of course, affected access to the […]