Over two days in mid-July, an elderly Colorado woman, 10 farmworkers and three Montana hikers were hit by lightning — and lived to tell about it. Lightning fatalities in the U.S. have decreased by 75 percent since 1968, partly because of better medical access, more education and safer buildings, but largely because fewer Americans farm […]
En-lightning statistics
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Conservation and affordable housing can coexist
I appreciated the nuanced description of Jackson’s affordable housing issues in “Paradise at a Price” (HCN, 6/10/13). I serve on the boards of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance and the Jackson Hole Community Housing Trust, and both are concerned that some people may not read past the statement that “conservation goals collide with the need […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Climate-forced water planning in Washington’s Yakima Valley
Prepping for future climate change means fixing past mistakes.
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
A timeline of the desert tortoise’s slow and steady decline
Because the desert tortoise’s Mojave range is largely on federal land, conservationists believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) should have better managed the animal’s recovery once it was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1989. Instead, the species has steadily declined. 1976 Bureau of Land Management establishes 40-square-mile Desert Tortoise Natural Area in […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
A review of Animal Crackers
Animal Crackers The Brothers Kraynak 48 pages, softcover: $19.95. The Brothers Kraynak, 2013. animalcrackersbook.wix.com/animal-crackers With its colorful illustrations and hand-lettered look, Animal Crackers resembles a children’s book — until you look more closely and realize it’s far from a soothing bedtime read. The Brothers Kraynak, Scott, a visual artist and park ranger, and his brother, […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Arid lands bibliopedestrianism
I’ll admit that those of us who live in remote desert places tend to be idiosyncratic, though it is unclear to me whether the weird are attracted to the wild, dry country or if we are instead sculpted by it. And when you live in relative isolation—and in a physical environment that conspires with that […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Sandy Gebhards and Sierra Crane-Murdoch on life in the oilfields
For many workers left jobless or underemployed after the economic recession of 2008, the domestic oil and gas boom now sweeping the U.S. seems like a quick ticket to high paying work. For the latest edition of Sounds of the High Country, KDNK’s ongoing collaboration with High Country News, KDNK’s Nelson Harvey spoke with Sandy […]
Posted inGoat
Senate considers new toxins regulations, but states resist
For nearly six hours on Wednesday, members of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee gathered to hear comments about a bill that could overhaul the EPA’s ability to regulate toxic chemicals. Hailed by a panelist from West Virginia as “the best, perhaps last, chance to reform” the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the new […]
Posted inGoat
Seven days to fund an anthology of Ed Quillen’s wise, curmudgeonly writing
Want to help ensure that the West will never forget one of its wisest and most unique voices, writer Ed Quillen? Consider chipping into this Kickstarter project to anthologize his work. Ed died last year on June 3, at his home in Salida, Colo. “For nearly 30 years, Ed had written about the region’s communities […]
Posted inWotr
Thank you, James Watt, for all you did for Greater Yellowstone
An eccentric secretary of Interior remembered for his unlikely conservation legacy.
Posted inGoat
Are the West’s energy fields the last bastion of upward mobility?
Imagine, for a moment, a child born in Gallup or Tohatchi or Church Rock, NM. We’ll call him Jonny Gallup. He’s an average, healthy kid, but life’s not easy. His mom works at a mini-mart gas station, and his father does odd jobs but has a tough time finding anything stable. Combined, they usually make […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
A new report says we’re draining our aquifers faster than ever
The startling history of groundwater usage across the West.
Posted inGoat
New pesticides from the Central Valley found in remote Sierra Nevada frogs
Amphibians are vanishing at an alarming rate, even from areas we think of as pristine and protected. California’s Sierra Nevada is a prime example of this global problem—five out of seven amphibian species there are threatened. Researchers are still trying to pinpoint exactly why ponds that once held mountain yellow-legged frogs or California red-legged frogs […]
Posted inWotr
Some states recognize that corn ethanol is a bum deal
As ethanol content in gasoline continues to rise, some communities are resisting.
Posted inGoat
Can feeding bears in the backcountry reduce bear-human conflict?
It’s been a hairy summer in New Mexico. In late June, a black bear attracted by birdfeeders tore into a tent at a campsite near Raton. The two women inside managed to escape and scare the bear off with their car alarm. Earlier that month, north of Cimarron, a 400-lb bear clawed its way into […]
Posted inGoat
Drones touch down in the American West
Once reserved for American military use in places like Pakistan, unmanned aerial vehicles — better known as drones — are becoming increasingly common here at home, as our pro-drone editor Jonathan Thompson wrote about earlier this year. But even as public concern mounts over the Obama administration’s use of the stealthy aircraft, everyone from scientific […]
Posted inGoat
Fracking passions run hot — and science gets burned
With the possible exception of England’s Royal Baby, few topics are as hot right now as fracking. No matter what news or quasi-news source you turn to, there it is: Impossible to ignore, nearly as impossible to understand. It’s no surprise that people are passionate about the subject. As Judith Lewis Mernit writes forHCN, natural […]
Posted inGoat
House Republicans’ anti-EPA crusade goes on and on
House Republicans moved forward a controversial bill last week that would cut a third of the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget, which raised the ire of environmentalists and caused at least one congressman to walk out of a committee meeting, calling the bill “an embarrassment.” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky) explained that the bill […]
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
New route to end Utah’s wilderness stalemate
Can one of the West’s most anti-federal lands lawmakers broker a mega-wilderness deal in the Beehive state?