MONTANA So far in the West, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer is the only one who kills bad bills by whipping out his custom branding iron, which spells out VETO. The latest Tea Party proposals that have flamed out include a bill making it harder for people to register to vote, another to permit the use […]
Lady Liberty v the Statue of Libertines
Posted inWotr
Anatomy of a disaster
The hydrologic havoc playing out in the Mississippi Delta is not a freak of nature. This slow-motion, manmade disaster is our inheritance from a previous generation of politicians, farmers and ranchers, who made bad decisions to correct short-term problems even as the best available science warned of long-term consequences. Like it or not, we will […]
Posted inRange
Water scarcity makes some types of energy less appealing
By Jeff Thomas Water and energy have been inexorably linked in human history at least back to ancient Babylonia, where windmills helped power irrigation as early as 1700 BC. Since then, that relationship has become one of the great axioms of the industrial age – that is, it takes great volumes of water to extract […]
Posted inGoat
Uranium cleanup begins on Navajo Nation
On top of Oljato Mesa on the Navajo Nation, these days the sound of wind and birdsong has been replaced by the snarl of heavy machinery. And to many residents the cacophony is welcome – because of what it represents. The Environmental Protection Agency is finally starting to haul away the toxic remnants of decades […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Doctor’s Orders: Undam the Klamath
In recent years, I witnessed the battle over re-licensing of four dams on the Klamath River, which runs from Oregon’s high desert country to the redwood and Doug fir forests of the California coast. This watershed is my home, and it filled me with hope that dam removal could bring salmon to reaches of river […]
Posted inBlog
Freedom Ride West
Editor’s note: James Mills is journeying around the West, exploring issues of diversity in Western national parks. In 1961, a long bus ride from Washington D.C. to New Orleans changed the world forever. The PBS American Experience documentary “The Freedom Riders” documents this journey. As you watch it, I hope that it will open As […]
Posted inGoat
While Non-Believers Punked the Rapture, the West was Punked
When Christian fundamentalists opened their eyes last Saturday evening, only to find that nothing, (at least there in their living rooms,) had changed, non-believers felt suddenly and gleefully exalted. In an unexpected twist, the sinners had been enraptured — at least metaphorically speaking — while their devout counterparts had kept their feet planted firmly on […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Respect for our (female) elders
Thanks for the article on the inspirational and tenacious Debbie Sease (HCN, 5/2/11). I work for The Wilderness Society and elders like Debbie, Johanna Wald of the Natural Resources Defense Council and volunteer Marge Sill with the Sierra Club in Reno are the inspiration for me and so many other women in the movement. While […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Indebted to Debbie
Kudos on your terrific article about Debbie Sease (HCN, 5/2/11). Those who have worked to protect land, water and wildlife with Debbie throughout her career know how talented she is and how much she has accomplished. All who love the West’s wild lands are indebted to Debbie.Johanna WaldSan Francisco, California This article appeared in the […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
All in not-so-good taste
This is my first time writing in to comment on an HCN story and what finally prompted me was not the contentious, passionate piece that I figured would inspire me to put fingers to keyboard. Instead, it was the slightly naughty, indulgent, but thoroughly invigorating essay about rock rolling (HCN, 5/2/11). I read the story […]
Posted inRange
Utah goes for the gold
If you live in Utah, you can now pay your local bills or taxes with gold or silver coins, thanks to a law passed by the state legislature this year. The new Utah law directs the state treasurer to set the exchange rate (so many dollars for a given weight of gold or silver) and […]
Posted inGoat
The Sound of … Journalism?
They say sex sells. But does music teach? This seems to be the case with a couple recent music videos — one on the potential health hazards of hydraulic fracturing (which we’ve covered quite a bit here at HCN, from lack of regulations to health studies to health hazards in the chemical mix) — and […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Three Tribes, a Dam and a Diabetes Epidemic
Herbert Wilson came to North Dakota’s Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in 1954, to a tiny town called Elbowoods, tucked above the Missouri River in a bucolic patchwork of riverside willows, cottonwoods and fields. A Vermont-bred 33-year-old, fresh from Harvard and a tour as a WWII bombardier, Wilson was the new, sole doctor for the reservation’s […]
Posted inGoat
Lead bullets find a champion in Tester
Last January, three endangered California condors were found dead in Arizona. The cause of death: lead poisoning. After eating carrion riddled with spent lead ammunition, the birds’ digestive systems likely shut down, starving them to death. Since condor reintroduction began in Arizona in 1996, 15 have died of lead poisoning; in California, 18 condors have […]
Posted inWotr
It may be High Noon for tumbleweed
Conjure up the lonesome sound of a harmonica in a dusty Western town where gunmen with jingling spurs reach for their six-shooters at high noon. The scene would be incomplete without a few tumbleweeds rolling past. But here’s the truth: Tumbleweed doesn’t belong on the Western plains. An exotic also known as Russian thistle, it […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Where has Montana’s water gone?
An old compact may not be enough to keep the Tongue River from running dry
Posted inGoat
Oil Industry Wins Subsidy Game, Again
Little more than a year after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, 4 dollar-a-gallon gas has prompted a bout of political amnesia. Despite various moratoriums on offshore drilling, the House of Representatives passed three separate bills last week that would hasten and expand domestic oil production. Then a Senate bill that had gained considerable momentum […]
Posted inRange
Kevin Costner, Western rivers, and climate change
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Reading the recently-released Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) report—on the impacts of climate change on Western water resources— is like watching Waterworld, that futuristic flop in which Kevin Costner sails around a post-apocalyptic globe that’s been completely inundated by melted polar ice caps, in search of dry land. Waterworld […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Upholding the right to take naps
NORTHERN ROCKIES There are some photos you really don’t want to take. One is an extreme close-up of a quiescent Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park — the kind of photo you’d get by standing as close as possible and pointing your camera down at its small pool of water — just before the geyser […]
Posted inGoat
Eminent domain expands
In early May, a business-supported eminent domain measure became law in Montana. It allows privately-held utilities to condemn private property for transmission lines and other “public good” projects if they cannot reach agreement with landowners. That means that two major new transmission lines slated to cross Montana can go forward. The lines were put on […]