In his Oct. 17 editor’s note, Paul Larmer writes: “Meanwhile, gigantic, uncontrolled fires have become more common than ever, largely driven by shifts in climate. Whether caused by lightning, arsonists or negligent campers, these mega-fires are reshaping the West. Smart managers are learning to use them, letting them burn where they can do some ecological […]
Firefighting at fault
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Energy succeeds where housing developers can’t
If you’re looking for a parable of the post-housing-bust West — where the real estate economy appears to have crumbled while the extraction industry roars back with a vengeance — you might find one in the troubled Banning-Lewis Ranch on Colorado’s sprawling Front Range. The city of Colorado Springs annexed the more than 21,000-acre property, […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Clean air regulations protect park views by targeting coal plants
An interpretive plaque at the Park Point overlook in southwest Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park identifies the landscape’s near and distant features. Sleeping Ute Mountain frames Montezuma Valley to the west. Farther east rise the Carrizo Mountains, then the Chuska Range near the Arizona-New Mexico border. In the foreground, a volcanic relic called Shiprock juts […]
Posted inArticles
The times, they are a changin’
Dear Friend: Evolution happens. For the first 25 years of its existence, High Country News delivered its unique blend of in-depth reporting, essays and humor via a black-and-white tabloid printed on newspaper stock. Sometimes the ink got smeared and stained your fingers. In 1995, the “paper” was joined by a website, hcn.org, that served primarily […]
Posted inRange
Where soldiers come from
By Bill Bishop, the Daily Yonder Where Soldiers Come From – New HD Trailer from Heather Courtney on Vimeo. Heather Courtney recalls that she was “frustrated,” troubled by “how small town America was often portrayed in the mainstream media.” She said she wanted to make a movie that would “tell a story about my rural […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: Sulfide statutes and Jesus statues
EPA reinstates reporting requirements for a poisonous gas To the relief of citizen advocacy groups (and the irritation of industry), the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its decision last week to lift a 17-year-long Administrative Stay on Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements for hydrogen sulfide — a poisonous gas that smells like rotten eggs and […]
Posted inWotr
Wolf on a picnic table
I once saw a wolf, or what I was told was one. It stood on a picnic table in Montana in the late evening sunshine, and 30 or so onlookers gathered around. The wolf was named Kaori. Clipped to a leash attached to her handler’s harness, she was part of an educational program and accustomed […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2011: Omens from a Vanished Sea
Wrestling with a destiny of dryness
When I was a teenager, I asked my father why we wasted our lives irrigating the desert. He wept because his only son didn’t get it. My father inherited his love of the desert from his father, who homesteaded in western Utah and once dug a two-mile ditch from a spring on Indian Mountain to […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
A fall crop of visitors
Along with harvesting pears and apples here in HCN‘s hometown of Paonia, Colo., we’ve reaped a bountiful bunch of fall visitors. Subscriber Lynn Lipscomb stopped by our offices to say hello in mid-September. Recently retired, she’s enjoying autumn in the desert at her home in Hurricane, Utah, near Zion National Park. But come winter, she’ll […]
Posted inRange
Dead wolf sprouts wings
Wolves do get around – but none more so than one that was already dead. Wolves are well known in the animal world for roaming long distances. Radio collars equipped with GPS have put new details in this marvel. One Oregon wolf covered nearly 300 miles this fall, simply looking around. Even so, the peregrinations […]
Posted inGoat
Big money bill could restrict bighorn management
Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson isn’t sheepish about legislative appendages. First it was a grazing rider that would allow the Bureau of Land Management to transfer permits without environmental review. His latest — also tacked to the House’s 2012 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations bill — could decide the fate of a wooly battle […]
Posted inGoat
What would John McPhee do?
Cross posted from The Last Word on Nothing When I’m thrashing through the brambles of a first draft, no story in sight, I have one reliable lifeline. WWJMD? What would John McPhee do to get himself out of this #%&! mess? This, after all, is the guy who found fascinating stories in Alaskan placer mining. And the […]
Posted inWotr
When the bear comes too close to home
It’s always seemed like a good idea to have chickens, especially if you live in a rural area. They turn compost into eggs. In the fall, they fill the freezer full of healthy meat at a reasonable price. They provide feathers for my dad’s fly-tying and my daughter’s hair. They eat the grasshoppers and fertilize […]
Posted inWotr
Pulling an Everett Ruess
After six months without a job, I wonder how I will support myself. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, mummified inside a contorted blanket, my dog hunched over my right hip in the posture of a turkey vulture. In the dark it’s hard to tell if he’s watching over me or […]
Posted inGoat
Mapping the West … in air polluters
If you happen to glance over the fantastic air pollution investigation jointly released by National Public Radio and the Center for Public Integrity this week (along with a handful of other cooperating media outlets that did regional stories), you might think to yourself: “Thank (insert deity here) I don’t live in the Midwest, East or […]
Posted inGoat
High-speed rail has high costs, but so do other options
When the California High-Speed Rail Authority released its revised business plan last week, headlines in the state and nation screamed gleefully about the project’s ballooning costs. “More grim news on $99 billion high-speed rail plan, as showdown looms,” lowed the Mercury News. “High-speed rail costs balloon to nearly $100B,” reveled the gotcha-happy investigative outfit California […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2011: Omens from a Vanished Sea
Utah’s ancient Lake Bonneville holds clues to the West’s changing climate
A curious horizontal line runs across the range — a notch cut into the mountains like a railroad bed, visible from many miles away. It snakes around every gully and ridge, 600 feet above the playa where the Donners hauled their wagons. Floating Island Mountain, visible to the east above a perpetual mirage, also shows […]
Posted inRange
In the rush for uranium, cooler heads prevail — for now
Updated 11/7/2011 By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Greens got what seemed like a rare bit of good news when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) last week released their Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Northern Arizona Proposed Withdrawal. The report looks at the potential impacts of removing federal lands near the Grand Canyon […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: ESA sees another day
The U.S. Supreme Court just waived its chance to rule on a constitutional challenge to the Endangered Species Act, the sixth time it’s refused to hear cases that might limit the bedrock law. The fish, endemic to the state, is two to three inches in length and resides in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Delta’s […]