NEVADA What helps someone survive an ordeal that would most likely kill anyone else? Rita Chretien, 56, should know. She and her husband, Albert, 59, who own an excavating company, were on their way from British Columbia to a trade show in Las Vegas when they lost their way in the mountains of northeastern Nevada […]
Back on your feet
Posted inGoat
New Indian Energy Policy Draft Rewrites Bush-era Law
Several months ago at the State of Indian Nations address in Washington D.C., Jefferson Keel, President of the National Congress of American Indians, implored Congress and the Obama administration to dispose of the hurdles that have kept tribes from tapping their own energy resources. Since then, many more tribal leaders have come before the House […]
Posted inWotr
Local food, local loans
I just loaned $3,000 to a small business in my western Colorado town of Paonia, and I’m looking forward to getting the first installment on the 6 percent interest. I haven’t decided, though, if I want it in the form of a box of fresh-picked veggies or as a gourmet dinner. In six years, provided […]
Posted inGoat
It’s about dam time
Switches will be flipped today on the Elwha River, as generators at two notorious hydroelectric dams — the Elwha and the Glines Canyon — are turned off. It’s a significant first-step in a process that will continue this summer, prepping the dams for their impending destruction. Now, the pieces have finally fallen into place. This […]
Posted inBlog
A slice of life for the average EJ organizer
Many people wonder what keeps a Sierra Club environmental justice organizer busy. We could ask my fellow EJ organizers around the country and most would tell you that the times around and after Earth Day are frequently the busiest. As spring melts the last of the snows (it snowed in Flagstaff just recently), and flowers […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Greening a city … and pushing other colors out
San Francisco, CaliforniaThe Hunters Point Naval Shipyard covers 500 acres on San Francisco’s southeastern flank, jutting out into the bay like the fletching of a giant arrow. Acquired by the U.S. Navy in 1940, it was once one of the West Coast’s largest shipyards, at its World War II peak employing up to 17,000 people, […]
Posted inWotr
Extreme Green
It has taken me decades to be recognized as an environmental extremist. My “attack” on Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, a National Rifle Association board member, in Sierra magazine fomented a mass exodus from the Outdoor Writers Association of America, including 79 members and 22 supporting organizations. I serve on two foundations that award major […]
Posted inGoat
Ordinary wild
The cougar looks thin, his narrow belly dragging close to the ground as he slinks along. Paws as big as saucers on the oil-spotted concrete. Mouth agape in a terrified pant below wild, shifting eyes. Shifting at cars that whoosh by, shifting at men who flicker at the edge of his vision — they’re clearly […]
Posted inGoat
Coal-to-liquids plant founders
In 2008, Montana was abuzz about a huge clean coal project in the works. The Australian-American Energy Company (AAEC) had agreed to collaborate with the Crow Tribe to build the $7 billion Many Stars coal-to-liquids plant on the reservation. The tribe would provide coal and water, both abundant on tribal lands. The energy company would […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Wolverines in unexpected places
On April 17, biologist Audrey Magoun and husband Pat Valkenburg discovered intriguing tracks in Oregon’s snowy Wallowa Mountains. Five days later, Magoun downloaded photos from a remote camera and realized the creature had company: Two hungry wolverines stared back from her screen, gnashing hunks of bait meat. It’s the first confirmed evidence of Oregon wolverines […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Watts of memories
Paul Larmer’s comments about his early years in D.C., and how many lobbyists stayed connected with the West through High Country News, brought to mind my early years with the Bureau of Land Management (HCN, 5/2/11). In the early ’80s, as James Watt ascended to the position of Interior secretary, I got my first taste […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
The cost of righteousness
I have a friend named Gina who is a great marriage counselor. Gina is roly-poly and effervescent — her mere presence disarms uptight people. With a Ph.D., an M.D. and decades of experience, she’s an empathetic listener, expressing just enough of her own opinions to create a genuine conversation and strive for breakthroughs. She’s very […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Richard Reynolds, raptor man
The main cabin at Big Springs Field Station in northern Arizona’s Kaibab National Forest isn’t the prettiest; there’s paint chipping from the floors and mouse poop in the corners. But the decorations cost about $9 million and took 20 years to collect. Oversized graphs, tables, maps and aerial photos crowd each other for wall space. […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Idolizing Ed
Call me humorless, but I was disturbed when I read Michael Branch’s essay about the boulder he and his buddies sent smashing downhill (HCN, 5/2/11). His joyous description of the event, in which he channels Ed Abbey’s ribald style perfectly, strikes my sober ear as just another chapter of the bad old story of humans […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
An interview with Carter Niemeyer, author of “Wolfer: A Memoir”
Carter Niemeyer is a wildlife biologist who started his career doing predator control and ended it working on wolf recovery in the northern Rockies. His new book, Wolfer: A Memoir, chronicles his years capturing, tracking, relocating and killing wolves for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Idaho Department of Game. The gray wolf’s […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Did I mention she can cook?
Debbie Sease was a welcome face on the cover of High Country News (5/2/11). The story didn’t mention two singular aspects of her career. She and the other graying conservationists in the story have all have been extraordinary mentors for many, many others. I got to know Debbie working at the Sierra Club many years […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Chill out with HCN and some chili
We’d like to invite our Colorado Western Slope readers and friends to a potluck chili feast following our late-spring board meeting. Come meet other HCN fans and our staff and board members. The fun starts at 6 p.m. on Friday, June 10, at the Town Park here in Paonia. We’ll provide the chili — hot, […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
The endless atlas: A review of Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas
Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas Rebecca Solnit167 pages, softcover: $24.95.University of California Press, 2010. San Francisco author Rebecca Solnit’s latest release, Infinite City, can be loosely described as an atlas of her hometown. But Solnit is interested in far more than geographical representation, as she writes in the book’s foreword: “An atlas is a […]
