On July 25, California Gov. Jerry Brown announced to an expectant press corps that the state plans to construct a pair of multibillion-dollar tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta in order to modernize and possibly expand the export of Northern California’s water, mostly south to farms and cities. After decades of rancor over what […]
Tunneling under California’s Bay Delta water wars
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Summer visitors
The folks keep flowing in, despite the heat. Virginia archaeologists Allen Hard and Marjorie Siegel dropped by our Paonia, Colo., headquarters to cool down. They were headed to Gunnison, where they plan to spend a couple of months surveying the old mining town of Tin Cup, elevation 11,500 feet, for the Forest Service –– a […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Stump appreciation
Becca Hall captured our town perfectly in her essay “Stump Proud” (HCN, 7/23/12). I am fortunate to live on the opposite side of the Upper Snoqualmie Valley. On my acre and a half, I have some of those old stumps left from the clear-cuts of the early 1900s. In fact, I have 90- and 100-foot-tall […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Slip-slidin’ away
Thank you for the excellent story “The great runoff runaround” in the July 23, 2012, edition. The article focuses on logging roads, but landslides are another important source of sediment pollution. Landslides are natural in the young, steep, unstable mountains of the American West, but clear-cutting and logging roads increase their rates by one or […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Sleuthing swifts in Indiana
I couldn’t help but smile while reading about Larry Schwitters’ pursuit of Vaux’s swifts (“Swift sleuth,” HCN, 7/23/2012). One of our favorite restaurants near downtown Indianapolis is the Rooftop Restaurant at Fountain Square, atop an old five-story brick building with a magnificent view of the downtown skyline and Midwestern sunsets. In the back of the restaurant, […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Old West versus New West in Taos, N.M.
I am essentially rootless. That aspect of my life began the moment I was born in suburban Los Angeles — already in motion, in an ambulance rushing my mother to a hospital. (That might be why I’m unusually sensitive to loud noises like sirens, and why I feel at home driving anywhere.) My family moved […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Lights, camera, life: A review of Beautiful Ruins
Beautiful RuinsJess Walter352 pages, hardcover: $25.99.Harper, 2012. Beautiful Ruins, Washington author Jess Walter’s dashing sixth novel, spans two continents and five decades, creating a panoramic view of the lives it encompasses. The paths of its nine main characters intersect in places as various as Italy, Hollywood, Seattle, and Sandpoint, Idaho, in the course of this […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Don’t ‘live and let live’ with polygamy
High Country News deserves praise for publication of Debra Weyermann’s article, “The Darkest Shade of Polygamy” (HCN, 6/11/12). The article appears to be well-researched and firmly based on verifiable fact, and in several respects even more compelling than Jon Krakauer’s earlier book, Under the Banner of Heaven. Readers might also question the reasons for the […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Conservation-business alliances
I enjoyed “The Hardest Climb” (HCN, 7/23/12), Greg Hanscom’s cover story about the outdoor recreation industry’s influence on conservation and public policy, as seen through the lens of Black Diamond Equipment and its CEO, Peter Metcalf. I’ll admit self-interest while suggesting one meaty strand that Greg touches on but doesn’t develop: the steady growth of working […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
Atlas of Yellowstone
Atlas of YellowstoneW. Andrew Marcus, James E. Meacham, Ann W. Rodman and Alethea Y. Steingisser274 pages, hardcover: $65University of California Press, 2012. The Atlas of Yellowstone details the Greater Yellowstone Area from A to Z. It goes beyond the region’s iconic geysers, wildlife and vegetation, with charts and maps that cover subjects ranging from the […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
A long, strange trip: A review of Pot Farm
As blunt as its title, Pot Farm, a memoir by poet and professor Matthew Gavin Frank, goes straight to the point: You, the reader, will take a trip through the world of medical marijuana cultivation and sales, in the process becoming familiar with the unusual and even bizarre cast of characters at Weckman Farm, and […]
Posted inGoat
When Robert Redford speaks, I listen
A dignified Eastern lady who enjoys spending days at Boston’s Museum of Fine Art and nights at the theater, my grandmother doesn’t know, or care, very much about water issues in the West. But when the phone rings in her apartment, she often shoots me a sly look and remarks, “that must be Robert Redford, […]
Posted inWotr
“Friending” nature
As someone who writes about nature and the West, I’ve been urged to get more involved with social media. “Search out your readers” I am told; don’t just sit back like a wallflower too shy or too proud to dance. But as a writer in rural Silver City, N.M., I have to wonder: Who wants […]
Posted inRange
Will Utah clean up its sale of public wildlife?
For years now, well-connected hunting groups in Utah have figured out a way to make big bucks off big game. Now news reports indicate sportsmen in Utah are getting fed up. Will Utah’s lawmakers put a spotlight on these transactions? Here’s the deal: Every year, two sportsmen’s groups, Sportsmen for Fish & Wildlife and the […]
Posted inGoat
A tale of two power plants
For many years, haze has tarnished the views at national parks, including Colorado’s Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon. On bad days poor air quality in Mesa Verde can cut visibility to just 20 miles. That’s a stark contrast to the clarity of the early 1900s, when visibility was up to 162 miles on a crisp, clear […]
Posted inWotr
Mourning the world we’ve lost
“How do we grieve? How do we grieve for all that disappears into the maw of human appetite? How do we grieve for something as beautiful and terrifying as the polar bear?” The white-haired woman’s voice broke as she stood to ask her difficult question, the other audience members turning somber faces toward her — […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Aggressive, cat-eating lizards
COLORADO As if the recent local wildfires weren’t trouble enough, now Woodland Park, Colo, has to worry about a “strong, aggressive” 6-foot monitor lizard that might find itself tempted to dine on cats and dogs. The “pet,” known as Dino, snapped its mesh leash and wandered off in the tourist town northwest of Colorado Springs, […]
Posted inRange
Desert solitaire: Las Vegas bets big on rural water
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House A water mining project that’s been a quarter-century in the making took a major step forward last week, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recommended approval of a plan for diverting groundwater from three counties in eastern Nevada to Sin City. In its final environmental impact statement (FEIS), the […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2012: Of Birds and Men
In search of camas, a Native American food staple
Skull Island sits in Massacre Bay, in Washington’s San Juan archipelago. Here, in 1858, Haida raiders killed a band of Coast Salish and left the bones behind. I can think of other, perhaps more cheery spots to look for flowers, but Madrona Murphy’s enthusiasm is unstanched. “Look!” she calls as our boat nudges against shore. […]
Posted inGoat
Help us cover the New New West
Dear Reader, I need your help. No, I’m not asking for money, or even a couch to crash on or your extra ramen noodles to dine on during reporting trips. I’m just looking for your ideas and observations. When I was brought on as High Country News’ senior-editor-at-large number two in July, it was with […]