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 […]
Sandy Gebhards and Sierra Crane-Murdoch on life in the oilfields
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 […]
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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 […]
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Thank you, James Watt, for all you did for Greater Yellowstone
An eccentric secretary of Interior remembered for his unlikely conservation legacy.
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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.
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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 […]
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Some states recognize that corn ethanol is a bum deal
As ethanol content in gasoline continues to rise, some communities are resisting.
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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?
Posted inJuly 22, 2013: Red Rock Resolution?
Pilgrim at Shit Creek
A mother comes to terms with her son’s childhood in the urban environment.
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A half percent of hope in this year’s drought reports
“Let’s play a game,” a friend suggested last weekend as we walked through stands of brown, brittle trees on Stewart’s Creek trail to San Luis Peak in southwestern Colorado. The game was called “find the living tree,” and like “I spy,” we’d scan the landscape for green leaves. We chuckled grimly. The truth she spoke […]
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My life without a dog
A newspaperman wonders if he’s the only person around without a canine friend.
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Renewable energy transmission projects create tension among greens
In mid June, I received two very different press releases from two environmental groups announcing the same event: The Bureau of Land Management’s release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed SunZia high voltage transmission line that would stretch from central New Mexico to the fringes of Phoenix, Ariz. The document is the […]
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I will fight fire no more
A wildland firefighter reflects on joys and sorrows of her fighting career, and on why she’s leaving the field.
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New data shows government oversight of oil and gas spills is spotty at best
When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently walked back its massive investigation of water contamination from natural gas drilling in Pavillion, Wyoming, John Hanger, a Democratic candidate for governor in Pennsylvania and the former secretary of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, wrote on his blog: “The EPA has just put a ‘kick me’ sign on […]
Posted inWotr
Durango life requires a hefty commute
Could this Colorado town benefit from high-density development?