Peter Stehr is an apple farmer. But when he had a heart attack in 2002, he decided he needed to diversify his income, so he and some associates got a loan and put up a few .6 megawatt wind turbines in his orchard. Today, one of them still spins over a row of apple trees, […]
The American West and the Energiewende: Part II
Posted inGoat
Climate change: moving from science to policy
Last Tuesday I was speeding through the electric-green Montana landscape and hoping for radio or digital cellular reception to tap into the news about President Obama’s climate plan. I was frustrated that I couldn’t hear the story, much less write about it. But it was more than enough consolation to be heading to Missoula to […]
Posted inGoat
Behind the fire headlines
With firefighter safety and the West’s changing fire ecology on everyone’s mind right now, it’s a good time to broaden our view with a trip into the HCN archives. Below are links to some of the in-depth stories we’ve done on these issues. Firefighter fatalities and safety The Fiery Touch: Wildfire arsonists burn forests, grasslands […]
Posted inWotr
Con: Colorado National Monument should not become a national park
As a close neighbor and regular user of Colorado National Monument in western Colorado close to Grand Junction, I suffered a sharp attack of NIMBYism when I heard of a 2011 proposal to turn one of the nation’s oldest national monuments into one of its smallest, newest national parks. I blanched at the prospects of […]
Posted inWotr
Pro: Colorado National Monument should become a national park
There’s been a lot of hoopla and public meetings here in Grand Junction, Colo., about turning the nearby Colorado National Monument into a national park. My opinion is simply: Why not? I know this is not a passionate position, but this isn’t a passionate subject. As a former national park ranger, I know that the […]
Posted inGoat
Yarnell Hill fire fatalities, in context
A good friend of mine who is a wildfire medic was in the airport yesterday, en route to his next assignment, when I called to ask him, in that helpless way we do, to be safe, and to see how he was handling the tragic news from Arizona, where 19 hotshots lost their lives Sunday fighting […]
Posted inWotr
Learning to live with wildfire
The enormous column of black smoke towered before me. As the Hammer Fire closed in on the backcountry workstation that I call home in the summer, fear spread from my hard hat to the soles of my fire boots. I was on a trail-crew turned fire-crew, suited up to help protect the historic Forest Service […]
Posted inGoat
A man needs a parade
On a bat-streaked evening in April, I found myself on a bridge over the Colorado River, just outside Moab, holding a bright sign, contemplating the twilight of the fossil fuel age and the darkness of celebrity environmentalism. I was tired and sunburned, having arrived there after an eight-day float trip through Desolation Canyon with the […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Time for a Tree House
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. I should admit straightaway that my young daughters never actually asked me to build them a tree house. I came up with the idea myself, got them attached to it, and then pretended that […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
My solar panel is bigger than yours
ARIZONA AND THE NATION It is puzzling, perhaps, that solar power accounts for less than 1 percent of the electricity generated in the United States. The cost of solar panels continues to drop, and canny utilities have begun to welcome the new power source as a way to stave off building astronomically expensive new power […]
Posted inGoat
What’s the matter with Colorado Springs?
When the so-called Black Forest Fire ignited near Colorado Springs on June 11 and quickly spread across 14,000 acres of forested neighborhoods — destroying more than 500 houses, killing two people and forcing thousands to evacuate — it was an obvious tragedy draped in orange flame retardant. But let’s keep in mind, a political disconnect […]
Posted inWotr
River access in Montana is worth fighting for
For people who think heaven must be a lot like fishing and floating Montana’s beautiful rivers, access to them is once again at the top of our agenda. For many of us, it’s always been our first concern. Montana has probably the best and most egalitarian access laws in the country — at least when […]
Posted inGoat
EPA drops study linking fracking to Pavillion pollution
To environmentalists, it must have looked, at last, like progress. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was finally getting serious about the potential risks posed by hydraulic fracturing — wherein pressurized water, chemicals and sand are fired into rock formations to release natural gas or oil. Residents of Pavillion, Wyoming, had been complaining for years that […]
Posted inGoat
Massive California water transfer to continue
Ah, San Diego: great weather, a zoo with adorable panda bears, sandy beaches, turquoise swimming pools — and very little water. Unlike other arid Southwestern cities, San Diego doesn’t have an aquifer to draw its drinking water from, so it imports about 80 percent of it. For many years, L.A.’s Metropolitan Water District supplied most […]
Posted inWotr
About a disappearance in a national park
This happens all too often in the rugged backcountry of the West: A hiker goes out for a day, or an afternoon, and never returns. A search is launched, and eventually the person is found safe — or it ends less happily, and a body is recovered. This time it happened at Mesa Verde National […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Time is running out to get the poster!
We’re in the home stretch of our special referral promotion to enlist friends, family and colleagues to join the HCN community of people serious about the West. More than 125 new readers have stepped up to subscribe and support the work we do here. And their reward? Besides the high-quality journalism we’re known for, they’ll […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Hal Herring on the Rocky Mountain Front
KDNK, a public radio station in Carbondale, Colo., regularly interviews High Country News writers and editors, in a feature they call “Sounds of the High Country.” Here, Nelson Harvey speaks with Hal Herring about his recent essay on looming energy development on the Rocky Mountain Front, where Herring lives. Thumbnail photo courtesy of Sam Beebe, Ecotrust, […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
The Rocky Mountain Front blues
Augusta, Montana Nine years ago this May, my wife, Holly, and I bought an old house in Augusta, aiming to live and raise our children in a landscape and a culture — the two are inseparable — that we respect. About 20 miles west of town, the fierce wall of geology known as the Rocky […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
The Latest: A New Mexico county is first in the nation to ban fracking
BackstoryThe tiny town of Pavillion, Wyo., sits in the middle of the state’s gas patch, and in the midst of the heated national debate over the risks hydraulic fracturing poses to water quality. Residents complained about well water turning brown after drillers fracked nearby gas wells. In 2011, the EPA released a draft report linking […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
The Latest: A gold tax in the Silver State?
BackstoryNevada’s tax on mining was set in its 1864 Constitution at “a rate not to exceed 5 percent of the net proceeds,” and never fundamentally changed — even with recently skyrocketing gold prices in a state desperate for revenue. Advocates for a higher mining tax have for years been frustrated by legislators unwilling to go […]