Here in Moab, Utah, where we can watch railcars carry off the radioactive uranium waste that was stored right next to the Colorado River, many locals are steeling themselves for the return of yet more uranium to their lives. During the Cold War, Moab was called the uranium capital of the world, as the element […]
Our nuclear legacy should have taught us something
Posted inRange
The battle for new wilderness: A closer look at Montana’s Sleeping Giant
Editor’s note: This is the last story in a group of pieces produced for High Country News by students in the University of Montana’s online news class. They ran over a period of two weeks in the Range blog. You can see a list of all the stories here. By Daniel Viehland On Nov. 10, […]
Posted inRange
Left out of the Arizona debate: energy
On Wednesday, February 23rd, the four Republican presidential candidates were in my town, Mesa, Arizona, for yet another round of “debate.” As everyone knows (and as Tom Zoellner’s recent book excerpt reminded HCN readers), Arizona is friendly turf for these guys, and conservative Mesa may be friendliest of all. The audience at the Mesa Arts […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
How Arizona’s culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
To understand why Jared Lee Loughner shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and 18 others 2011, look to Arizona’s vitriolic politics.
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: environmental antiheros and solar booms
Picking apart the news through the hurried swoosh of this stunted week, I leaned back in my rickety desk chair for a few minutes to consider which rugged individualist in this day and age concerns me more. Is it the ironman fugitive on snowshoes who vanished in the powdery woods of Southern Utah nine years […]
Posted inWotr
Some politicians turn public lands into a political football
As presidential candidates crisscross the country — even dropping in on a few Western states — some have been making revealing comments about the vast public lands that help to define the American West. For instance, former Gov. Mitt Romney said, “I don’t know why the government owns so much of this land.” In the […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
I don’t love my dog
There’s a dead fawn outside my front door. The sweet young body is completely covered in tall grass, which means this is a mountain lion kill, which means that the mountain lion responsible is going to come back for the next few mornings and nights to finish eating. I must admit that, although I’m reflexively […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Hollywood turns wolves into man-killers
THE WESTOnce again, Hollywood has chosen mythmaking over reality in its portrayal of predators, in this case, Alaskan wolves, in a new movie called The Grey. According to the Spokane Spokesman-Review, the “man-versus-beast thriller” pits stranded oilfield roughnecks against extreme cold, hunger and a pack of starving wolves; when carnage erupts, “the wolves are usually […]
Posted inGoat
Of tooth, claw and plane: Making my peace with predator control
Updated 3/6/2012 A troubling item appeared in the news last month, troubling to this news consumer and, if they could read, troubling to the predators of Alaska. Out of a desire to save caribou, moose, elk and in particular musk oxen, the state’s Board of Game now allows state officials to shoot bears from planes […]
Posted inWotr
This is a winter of snowy owls
It took only two hours for me to reach the apparent miracle that was occurring near Flathead Lake in Polson, Mont.: Snowy owls had turned up here after flying all the way from the Arctic, and everybody in the town of about 4,000 seemed to know about it. I’d never seen these spectacular, two-foot-tall birds, […]
Posted inGoat
Uncontrolled release
This scintillating-looking snippet of paperwork was pulled from the PR portion of a materials containment plan filed with the state of Colorado by Suncor Energy’s oil refinery in Commerce City, which produces about 90,000 barrels a day of gasoline, diesel and asphalt. It was supplied to High Country News by Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians, […]
Posted inRange
Who’s the worst of all?
In his essay “The Second Rape of the West” published in 1975, Edward Abbey observed that when Westerners with certain attitude problems start talking, the conversation often features their representatives in the U.S. Congress. “Look at Senators Garn and Moss of Utah, Senators Goldwater and Fannin of Arizona, Governor Rampton of Utah, Congressmen Steiger and […]
Posted inRange
Risks remain from uranium mining near the Grand Canyon
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House When the 20-year withdrawal of nearly one million acres of public land from uranium development near the Grand Canyon was finalized last month, reaction was mixed. Conservationists, who’d been warning of contamination of surface and groundwater flowing into the Colorado River from mining activity, mostly exhaled in relief. (Never mind the […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
Communities help pay for ecosystem services provided by forests
Strontia Springs Reservoir, 30 miles south of Denver, Colo., looks like water you’d want to scoop up in your dipper. Sunshine and pine reflect off its aqua-blue surface. But 16 years ago, it looked more like a latte clogged with cinnamon bark. In 1996 and 2002, major forest fires scorched the Upper South Platte River […]
Posted inRange
Richard Hugo, revisited
Editor’s note: These stories were produced for High Country News by students in the University of Montana’s online news class. They will be running over a period of two weeks in the Range blog. See a list of all the stories here. By Annela Rova The celebrated American poet Richard Hugo chose to focus on […]
Posted inGoat
Evolve or die
Cross-posted from The Last Word on Nothing. Updated 2-21-2012 to correct image of chipmunk. Several years ago, on a soggy but majestic mountain afternoon, I hiked into the Yosemite backcountry to meet UC-Berkeley mammalogist Jim Patton. Patton and his colleagues at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology were retracing the steps of renowned naturalist Joseph Grinnell, […]
Posted inRange
Fighting a pervasive invader: Crested wheatgrass
Editor’s note: These stories were produced for High Country News by students in the University of Montana’s online news class. They will be running over a period of two weeks in the Range blog. See a list of all the stories here. By Rachel Seidensticker Plastic netting lines the winding gravel road at the MPG […]
Posted inGoat
Words are wind
From Twin Falls to American Falls, Jerome to Rexburg, a series of anti wind-energy billboards have been springing up around Idaho like mushrooms after a rainstorm. The big blue signboards feature pictures of windmills clustered around the campaign slogan: “Swindle” (the “wind” emphasized in bold red type), below which is written, “not cheap — not […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
We the corporate campaign donors?
I remember the billboard controversy in Tucson in the 1980s described in Ray Ring’s story (HCN, 1/23/12, “Billboards vs. Democracy”). As a scientist, I try to look for simple, logical solutions to problems. My take on corporate money in politics is a simple one. We, the voters, elect someone to represent us. If a candidate […]
Posted inFebruary 20, 2012: How Arizona's culture helped shape the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords
We need Wilderness Watch
The issues discussed in “The law, the lookout and the logging town” are significant, but the focus is wrong (HCN, 1/23/12). Lookouts are great, but in wilderness areas they straddle the boundary between historic and intrusive. Wilderness is not for people even though we benefit from it. The Wilderness Act of 1964 is clear: Abandoned […]