In the midst of the drought, here in Arizona, the rah-rah development conferences go on, with smooth-talking hucksters claiming that we need to prepare for millions more people who will be moving here (“Dry new world,” HCN, 5/13/13). I’m not sure what will start the inevitable exodus from the Phoenix metro, but the combination of […]
If we build it, rain will come — right?
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
If a tree falls in the forest, who talks about it?
As a fourth-generation Oregonian whose family has only minimally depended on the forest-products industry, I often find myself drifting far from zero-cut environmentalists on the one hand and industry cheerleaders on the other (“A New Forest Paradigm,” HCN, 4/29/13). It’s all too obvious to me how the industry and its dependent towns got into the current […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Helium rising in the West
Near the middle of the Utah-Colorado line, a two-track winds into dry hills where rusty pipes poke from the sagebrush, marking cement-capped natural gas wells. Wildcatters drilled here in the 1920s, but abandoned the holes after striking mostly nitrogen and helium instead of hydrocarbons. Now, Denver-based oil and gas company Flatirons Resources wants to tap […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Crossing the border gets deadlier
Between October 2011 and September 2012, 463 people died in the desert after slipping across the U.S.-Mexico border – the most since 2005, when about three times as many entered the country illegally. Today, migrants are eight times more likely to die than a decade ago, according to the National Foundation for American Policy. Most […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
California farm communities suffer tainted drinking water
In California’s agricultural hub, the Central Valley, Latino communities fight for clean water.
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Book review: A Natural History of the Santa Catalinas, Arizona
A Natural History of the Santa Catalinas, Arizona. Richard C. Brusca and Wendy Moore, 232 pages, softcover: $24.95. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Press, 2013. The Santa Catalina Mountains in southeast Arizona “easily become a good friend,” writes philosopher Bill Broyles in the introduction to this new book by two Southwest naturalists. A Natural History explores the […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Big eyesore on the prairie
The plain fact regarding wind farms is that they are terrible in and for the environment (“Haywired,” HCN, 5/27/13). One day, on a beautiful plateau or prairie, there are small and large game, wild birds of all types and little human interference. The next day, there are large white windmills, roads, fences, people, pickup trucks, neatly groomed pasture, and all the game is gone. A complete […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Becoming pronghorn: an essay
Remembering wildlife biologist James Yoakum
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Acting the part
The Five Acts of Diego LeónAlex Espinoza304 pages, hardcover: $26.Random House, 2013. Diego León, the protagonist of Alex Espinoza’s second novel, makes his way to the U.S. during the turmoil of the Mexican revolution, hoping to achieve stardom at a time when Hollywood’s major studios each “had a Latin actor under contract.” Espinoza, who was […]
Posted inGoat
Plugging in
Cross-posted from The Last Word on Nothing, a blog about science Two weeks ago, for the first time in 15 years, I flushed the toilet inside my house. This — and by “this” I mean the 15 years of non-flushing — was not quite as gross as it might sound. Until very recently, my family […]
Posted inJune 10, 2013: Paradise at a Price
Oval Intention: an essay
In the buttery early morning light at Tuolumne Meadows, my 8-year-old son and I contemplate a heap of fabric and jumbled poles. We’d woken early to claim a good campsite, but only now do I recall the difficulty of assembling my father’s ancient tent. He and my daughter are still sleeping, miles away. The instructions […]
Posted inWotr
My public land pup
My dog is the best dog in the world. Now, he hasn’t always been that way. He’s a springer spaniel-Labrador or a “springador,” and he was the puppy from hell. He chewed up three pairs of reading glasses and nibbled the top off of one of my cowboy boots. He didn’t do too well in […]
Posted inGoat
The summer of our discontent
Confession: While my homeland dries, and pillars of smoke pour out of some of my favorite places, I am far, far away in a place where I must jump over puddles in the park and almost swim my way through air thick with oxygen and humidity. I’ve moved my mobile office to Manhattan for a […]
Posted inWotr
Five windshield visions
One: Nevada. A few miles from the California line, heading into the setting sun, I have to put my hand up to shade my eyes, so bright is the starflash on the windshield. Signs have warned, in wordless silhouette, of horses on the highway, and in fact I have seen two small herds of wild […]
Posted inJune 10, 2013: Paradise at a Price
Latino radio stations connect immigrant communities
“Si, buenas tardes?” Miriam Ceja chirped into the microphone at La Nueva Mix’s studio in Glenwood Springs, Colo. It was 5 p.m., “prime drive time,” on a Wednesday evening in late March. La Nueva Mix is primarily a music station, playing Norteño ballads and other Latin American tunes. But since its debut six years ago, […]
Posted inGoat
Death in the desert
Updated 6/24/13 Two weekends ago I traveled to Mesa Verde National Park in southern Colorado to do some reporting for a future story on diversity in the parks system. On Monday morning, the 10th, I was waiting in the administration office for my appointment with Cliff Spencer, the park’s black superintendent, to begin. I heard […]
Posted inGoat
The blue window
“Buy this book and read it on the plane (!)” This was David’s advice to me for our upcoming expedition to Alaska’s Harding Icefield, sent with a link to Glacier Mountaineering: An Illustrated Guide to Glacier Travel and Crevasse Rescue. I am no stranger to mountains, having grown up in Colorado and spent several seasons […]
Posted inWotr
Clinging to coal on the reservation is looking backward
“Courageous,” “an opportunity,” “a venture into a new era,” “a vision for the future.” To hear glowing words like these from some leaders of the Navajo Nation, you might think the tribe had decided to head boldly into renewable energy or some other modern economic model. But no, the officials were describing the tribe’s desire […]
Posted inGoat
So long, San Onofre (in like 700 million years)
In the winter of 2005, I took a tour of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, a two-gigawatt power plant near San Clemente, Calif., 70 miles south of where I live. I was willing to entertain, if only for the sake of a story, that nuclear power offered a solution to impending climate catastrophe, as […]