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 […]
Swapping politics for science
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 – […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West
I like how our local cemetery, nestled in the shoulder of a small hill above town, is shaped by both natural and human forces. Among the varied stones and markers of the dead and a scattering of native juniper trees and planted arborvitae, I will usually spot a small herd of mule deer and loose […]
Posted inRange
Moving Washington beyond coal
By Jennifer Langston, Sightline.org A deal to wean Washington off coal power is a hair’s breadth away from becoming law. Both houses of the Legislature have approved a bill to close the state’s largest single source of greenhouse gas, mercury, and nitrogen oxide pollution over the next decade and a half. And with the addition […]
Posted inGoat
Clearing the way for renewables
On public lands, mining claims are staked for more than just the riches hidden underground. Some are made simply to wrest cash from competing users — namely possibly renewable energy developers, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Speculators can could grab up mining claims in areas considered for wind and solar energy development […]