(updated 1/30/2011) I recently read that the energy industry hates fracking. Of course, they actually love fracking — as in hydraulic fracturing to crack rock and release all those juicy hydrocarbons. What they hate is the word itself: “fracking.” I hate it, too, though I suspect for very different reasons. Energy flacks abhor “fracking,” according […]
Why industry doesn’t like “fracking” and neither do I
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: industry grows and species croak
Updated 1/27/2012 Breaking: Presidential candidate Marvin E. Quasniki, from the Henson Company, kicked off his Nevada tour this week. He’s a puppet from Nevada, a turquoise farmer from Tonopah and a crude entrenchment of old ideas whom you don’t completely trust speaking around your children. ENERGY Water’s a key element of the nuclear energy equation. […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Richard West Sellars’ distinguished National Park Service career
On a late October afternoon, Richard West Sellars orders a bowl of black bean soup at Harry’s Roadhouse in Santa Fe, N.M. At least twice a week, he has lunch here with other former and current National Park Service employees. Today, Dan Lenihan, a retired underwater archaeologist, describes diving to survey sunken ships at Bikini […]
Posted inWotr
Pity the Sacketts? Not much
It’s hard not to feel for Mike and Chantell Sackett, the Idaho couple who saw their plans for a dream home on a remote Idaho lake kiboshed by the EPA in 2007. In early January, when their case against the federal agency went before the U.S. Supreme Court, their lawyer, Damien Schiff, told a story […]
Posted inGoat
Snow fight on the slopes
A tussle over water rights has broken out between the ski industry and the U.S. Forest Service. And, like the conditions this winter, things are a bit nasty. The dispute is over a new clause in ski area permits that prohibits ski companies from selling or transferring some water rights to cities, farms or other […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
No ski for you
MONTANAThe owners of Montana Snowbowl near Missoula really, really don’t like criticism. So after a skier complained, they refused to sell him a season ski pass, or even daily tickets at a reduced rate during the pre-season. Jim Sylvester says that he put a comment in a handy suggestion box at the ski area, noting […]
Posted inWotr
Feeding the deer
I live in a California mountain town that’s perched on a ridge that ascends toward the higher Sierras. The place was initially called Dogtown, and it boasts the distinction of being the site where California’s biggest-ever gold nugget was found. The town was supposed to be called “Magnolia,” but the poor spelling and/or penmanship of […]
Posted inGoat
Obama’s energy love fest
1: number of times President Obama said the word “environment” in his 2012 State of the Union address 23: number of times he said “energy” 8: number of times he preceded it with “clean” 1: number of times he preceded it with “renewable” 1: number of times he mentioned “climate change” A word cloud of […]
Posted inRange
Tar sands battle continues in California courts
By Maria Gallucci, InsideClimate News A high-stakes legal battle is underway in California over whether the state’s clean air agency can enforce a first-ever rule to slash carbon emissions in transportation fuels. The fight is being closely watched because the rule could choke global market demand for Alberta’s carbon-intensive oil sands at a very precarious […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
The logging town of Darrington, Wash., fights to save a fire lookout
On a blustery summer night, the Red Top Tavern in Darrington, Wash., is nearly empty. A neon Hamm’s beer sign illuminates a picture of a local logger reclining in the bucket of an excavator with the caption “Redneck Hot Tub.” Above it hangs a crosscut saw, just like in every bar in every other Northwest […]
Posted inRange
Tourism creates jobs, but it’s still a mixed bag
In the past few days, Twitter has been hopping with responses to the White House’s #VisitUS campaign. Initiated by President Obama’s speech on January 19th announcing new proposals to boost tourism (and the jobs that it creates), tweeters (tweeps) were invited to solicit visitation to their hometowns, and they have, in droves. “Rapid City SD […]
Posted inGoat
(In)secure rural schools, once again
Many struggling Western counties will find themselves in even worse financial shape if an expiring federal law isn’t renewed soon. Since 2000, local governments in 41 states have received billions of dollars from the feds to compensate them for reduced revenue from timber sales. Especially in logging-dependent states like Oregon and Washington, which saw federal […]
Posted inWotr
Let the EPA finish its work in Pavillion, Wyoming
Over the last few weeks, the gas industry and their advocates have gone to great lengths to refute the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft report about the effects on groundwater of hydraulic fracturing – fracking — for gas in Pavillion, Wyo. In case you missed the story, on Dec. 8 the EPA released “confirmation of highly […]
Posted inRange
A Great Aridity
There’s an old Doors song which tells us that “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” That pretty well sums up the message I got from the new book by William deBuys, A Great Aridity: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest. He takes us around the region — its heart, […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
What the flock?
I just finished reading HCN’s Dec. 12th issue, and discovered, on the back page, within Betsy Marston’s letter-perfect column no less, the unexpected: an aggregation of sheep referred to as a “herd.” “Holy sufferin’ sheep dip,” I blurted. “How can it be?” But then as I backtracked through the same report, I discovered that I’d […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Welcome, Eric and Kati
Eric Strebel, our soft-spoken new Web developer, joined the HCN team Dec. 1. He’s been working with computers since 1978, when he got his first personal computer. Eric eventually developed his programming hobby into a livelihood. Prior to joining us, he freelanced and operated Mountain West Communication’s website for about a decade. Eric enjoys fishing, […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Small dairies raise big questions
In the article “Milk and Water Don’t Mix” by Stephanie Paige Ogburn (HCN, 11/28/11), the dairy industry was made out to be the bad guy, which it is in its present form as a huge, polluting concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO. But a combination of trends has created a monster from what used to […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Shadow Wolves track down smugglers on the Arizona-Mexico border
The technologies border police use to protect our boundaries range from the historic (mustangs trained for mounted patrols) to the futuristic. (The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency plans to nearly triple its fleet of unmanned surveillance Predator B aircraft.) But nothing can track a smuggler quite like a human being. The Shadow Wolves, a […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
No more stopgap solutions
The dispute between the Environmental Protection Agency and Mora Mutual Domestic Water and Sewer Association brings to the fore an issue that plagues many poor rural communities (HCN, 12/12/11, “Clean Water Conundrum”). Both septic systems and treatment plants distract from the real issue of human waste removal at the point of disposal — the household. […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 2012: Billboard corporations use money and influence to override your vote
Move over, Ed Abbey
Craig Childs is a treasure, and his essay in the last issue is but another jewel (HCN, 12/26/11 & 1/09/12, “Stranger in these parts”). I have been enjoying his words for a decade and have now come to realize that he is my favorite Southwestern writer since Ed Abbey. I think that Ed, whom I […]