Some of the worst invasive ornamental plants, where they’re found in California and their ecological damage rating Giant reed, ArundoFound in: Riparian areas; central west, great valley, northwest, Sierra Nevada, southwest, Sonoran and Mojave deserts.Ecological damage rating: High Fountain grassFound in: Coastal dunes and scrub, chaparral, grasslands; central west, great valley, southwest, Mojave and Sonoran […]
Don’t plant a pest
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Siltation expert: We need more dams
George Annandale has worked all over the world, studying, constructing and retrofitting dams and reservoirs to manage the sediment they accumulate. A native South African, Annandale, 59, is a water resources program leader for Golder and Associates, an international engineering and consulting firm. High Country News Executive Director Paul Larmer caught up with him in […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Explorer’s notebook: Craig Childs on the Lower San Juan
Craig Childs reads from his journal and narrates his paddle down the Lower San Juan River, with photos and video he took on the trip. Additional photography courtesy of andrew davidoff, Alaskan Dude, and kla4067. Licensed under Creative Commons. Canyon treefrog recording copyright Jeff Rice and the Western Soundscape Archive.
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters: Silt and the Slow Demise of Glen Canyon Dam
Updated 5/17/11 The Lower San Juan River courses through a rather forsaken landscape of clay hills and redrock plateaus in southeast Utah. At the end of a long, dusty road, there is a boat ramp at the water’s edge where, at any warm time of year, vans and roof-racked Subarus bake in the sun while […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Green ‘New Urbanist’ development rises in Albuquerque suburbs
One way to explain how a Manhattan-sized mesa may become the Southwest’s largest green development is to point to its past success as an apocalyptic wasteland. In 2008, a touch of twisted metal transformed part of Mesa del Sol, a 12,900-acre expanse south of Albuquerque, into a robot-ravaged Los Angeles for the movie Terminator Salvation. […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Critter contraceptives
In the 1960s, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service researchers used hormone-laced bait to prevent New Mexico coyotes, the “little bad guys of the Western Plains,” from reproducing so effectively. It worked pretty well: Up to 80 percent of treated females didn’t get pregnant. But those females had to consume meds repeatedly throughout the breeding cycle, […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
As seas rise, cities retreat
Climate change is causing seas to rise — and threatening cities along the West Coast. At the current rate of greenhouse gas emission, scientists estimate that global temperatures will increase by an average of 8 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, melting polar ice sheets and upping sea levels by a meter. According […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
A deadly fastball in Denver: A review of The Ringer
The RingerJenny Shank 304 pages, hardcover: $28.The Permanent Press, 2011. The slaying of a Mexican-American immigrant triggers parallel experiences of personal anguish, family discord and cultural dissonance, seen alternately through the eyes of the dead man’s widow and the cop who shot him. “His thoughts were a confusing jumble of elation, dread, relief and fear,” […]
Posted inSupport
Covering the issues that matter
Watch contributing editor Matt Jenkins, as he explains the importance of water in the West!
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: What would Edward Abbey do?
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. One crisp, blue day late last fall I dodged work in order to climb my home mountain with three friends who were also shirking their adult responsibilities that day. My Silver Hills buddy Steve […]
Posted inWotr
Just call me a RAC star
I got a note from Ken Salazar the other day. I was glad to hear from him. It had been a while since we had visited. Well, OK … we’ve never visited. The secretary of Interior doesn’t know me from Adam’s cat. But still, it was nice to hear from him. I don’t get all […]
Posted inArticles
Can bandits: Recycling fraud hits California
In February 2010, criminal investigators tailed a pair of Penske rental trucks more than 300 miles, from a self-storage facility in Phoenix, Ariz., to a small house on the outskirts of Perris, Calif. They watched as the drivers transferred their loads to two handyman’s vans. Then they drove the vans across town to a set […]
Posted inBlog
Jobs vs. the environment?
A few weeks ago in this space, I bemoaned the slow pace of green energy development in the face of nuclear disaster in Japan and oil-spill devastation in the Gulf of Mexico. As a consumer of both these dirty fuels, I feel complicit in and mostly helpless to change this unsustainable state. I have steadfastly […]
Posted inGoat
Rid(er)ing into the sunset
Last week’s heavily wrangled 2011 federal spending deal brought with it some unexpected baggage. Along with $38 billion in budget cuts, unrelated riders attached to the bill derailed the controversial Bureau of Land Management Wild Lands order and yanked Northern Rockies gray wolves from the endangered species list. Deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Defense mechanisms
COLORADO “Plants can’t run and hide” in the world, so over time, some have evolved the ability to alter their structure when they perceive a threat. That’s the mechanism now being exploited by Colorado State University biologist Jane Medford, as she and some 30 undergraduate and graduate students genetically engineer plants to signal the presence […]
Posted inWotr
Don’t blame it all on global climate change
Recently, I was astonished to read a paper published by a prestigious institution that stated — without qualification — that Colorado’s current bark beetle epidemic could be pinned on the donkey of climate change. More amazing yet, this paper said that Vail Resorts now seeds clouds because of the unreliable snow caused by climate change. […]
Posted inRange
The hard drinkers aren’t in the West
The West has the two-fisted image as a land of hard drinking, but it may not deserve that reputation, according to statistics compiled by America’s Health Rankings. The survey looked at “binge drinking,” defined as the percentage of population over 18 years old which has, in the preceding 30 days, had more than five drinks […]
Posted inArticles
Uncommon Westerner: Bevan Frost crafts custom guitars
Wyoming native and luthier Bevan Frost discusses how he started making guitars, shows some works in progress, and tells how living in the rural West shapes his craft.