Last week, Los Alamos National Labs finally reached a settlement with community groups over their 2008 lawsuit claiming that polluted runoff from the facility violated its federal clean-water permit. But worries over toxic stormwater discharges at the lab go back decades (PDF report) and came to a head 11 years ago this month, when the […]
Mopping up at Los Alamos
Posted inGoat
CAFO air pollution crackdown?
I’m traveling in New Mexico this week, learning about its dairy industry, and thinking a fair bit about how we raise animals — for milk and meat — in the United States. Many of the people I’ve met so far on this trip live very near large dairies. Some of the people I hope to […]
Posted inGoat
Wolverines in the Wallowas
After almost two decades of silence, the North American wolverine (Gulo gulo) is confirmed to be back on the prowl in the mountains of Oregon. Two of the feisty carnivores, dubbed “Iceman” and “Stormy,” were caught on remote camera feasting on hunks of bait meat in the Wallowa Mountains — the first verified wolverine sightings […]
Posted inRange
Swapping politics for science
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House It’s not often a government agency asks Congress to limit the amount of money it spends to do its job. But that’s what the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) did last month when it told Congress that it wants a cap put on how much it can […]
Posted inGoat
Fracking fluid spill raises concerns over regulation
On April 19, a mechanical problem at a Pennsylvania natural gas well caused thousands of gallons of briny water and fracking fluid of unknown composition to spew out of the well, overwhelm containment facilities and flow across a field and into a pond. The local emergency management agency told seven families to evacuate their homes. […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
The most influential conservationist you’ve never heard of
Washington, D.C. When environmentalists needed somebody to stand in front of the cameras on the U.S. Capitol lawn last summer, to connect BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the debate over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Debbie Sease got the call. The veteran Sierra Club lobbyist — flanked by two […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
A misguided investigation ends an era in Arizona
Calling the National Park Service case against Billy Malone “misguided” is a kindness. Others use words like “corrupt” or “fiasco” when speaking of the bungled federal investigation that cost taxpayers nearly a million dollars, ruined the reputation of one of the last old-time Indian traders and may have transformed an authentic Indian trading post into […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Wind farms test efforts to cooperate on Oregon’s Steens Mountain
On a hazy autumn day, Fred Otley leans against his flatbed pickup and talks about managing the Otley Brothers Ranch in desolate, windy southeast Oregon. A careful rotation of grazing and fire sustains the open mosaic of juniper and sagebrush on the valley slopes, he explains. He points to the water tank he installed to […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
What’s in a name?
The West of yore must have been a miserable, filthy place, with lonesome settlers teetering precariously atop a stack of long odds. Or so you might conclude after surfing the U.S. Geological Survey’s database of place and landform names. The region certainly has a corner on Disappointments, with 46 of the nation’s 53 references falling […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Profile: Rodger Schlickeisen, Defenders of Wildlife
“I like snow on the Crazies,” says Rodger Schlickeisen, longtime president and CEO of one of the most ardent D.C.-based environmental groups, Defenders of Wildlife. He’s not talking about snowflakes falling on members of Congress. He means the white stuff that piles up on Montana’s Crazy Mountains, northeast of Bozeman. For 22 years, Schlickeisen has […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Profile: Corey Shott, National Wildlife Federation
Montana native Corey Shott grew up in Missoula, came to D.C. to earn a bachelor’s in political science at George Washington University and made politics her career: An internship with Montana Sen. Max Baucus, then campaign work for various Democratic candidates, then a couple of years as a “junior lobbyist” for a D.C. firm that […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
“Shoot locally”
In late March, High Country News was one of the sponsors of our hometown’s inaugural Paonia Film Festival. Twenty-two short films by western Colorado filmmakers were presented at the Paradise Theatre, including HCN Online Editor Stephanie Paige Ogburn‘s stop-motion animation about boots in love. The Audience Choice award for “Most Environmentally Conscious” film — a […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Good-enough mothers: A review of Wrecker
WreckerSummer Wood304 pages, hardcover: $20.Bloomsbury USA, 2011. In her second novel, Wrecker, New Mexico author Summer Wood draws on her personal experience as a foster parent. Wrecker is a bruiser of a boy who “seemed to need to feel his body collide with the physical world to know he existed.” He’s born and mostly raised […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Go East, young greens
After college, I landed a series of internships with environmental groups in Washington, D.C. I thought I would change the world, protecting the last wild places while putting some badly needed brakes on society’s insatiable appetite for growth. I ended up making vast amounts of coffee, Xeroxing dense legal documents (no computers yet), and writing […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Federal budget deal slashes key community water funds
Steven Meade doesn’t hide his frustration. As treasurer of the Atlanta Water Association in Atlanta, Idaho, he has the unenviable task of coming up with money to fix his community’s water-quality problems. And Atlanta has had its share. A century of gold mining that ended in 1963 leached heavy metals into the nearby Boise River. […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
An epic tale of the Northwest: A review of West of Here
West of HereJonathan Evison496 pages, hardcover: $24.95.Algonquin Books, 2011. Once home to the Siwash and Klallam tribes, then to frontiersmen and a Utopian community, the fictional town of Port Bonita, Wash., provides a fertile backdrop for Jonathan Evison’s second novel, West of Here. Alternating between the late 19th century and the year 2006, Evison reveals […]
Posted inBlog
EJ activist Ed Abbey?
Spring semester is winding down, and the students in my course Rhetoric of the Environmental Movement are reading Edward Abbey’s 1968 memoir, Desert Solitaire. After having duly investigated news reports, scientific studies, websites, and environmental impact statements, they appreciate Abbey’s lively and eccentric voice and his vivid descriptions of the landscape of Arches National Park. […]
Posted inWotr
Privatization threatens an Arizona national forest
Once upon a time, the Western public lands — places like our national forests and parks — were supported with American tax dollars. In return, we were welcome to use them. Undeveloped areas required no money to enter, and developed facilities were basic but affordable. Land managers were public servants whose mission was stewardship – […]