I have been busy this year chasing my two young ones around the house trying to get giddy little happy people to take a few moments from their daily joy to drink some water, gulp vitamins and brush their teeth before bed so they can stay healthy. The need to play is often prioritized over […]
Will the EJ legacy of Southwest coal be addressed?
Posted inGoat
Coal in the courts
When environmentalists began taking the climate change fight to the courts, their focus was strategically narrow. In the early part of this decade, most climate-related lawsuits focused on taking out the most immediate threat: new coal-fired power plants. It was a logical approach; had a slew of new plants come online, “they would’ve overwhelmed any […]
Posted inGoat
The birds and the blades
Driving through rolling hills into California’s Bay Area on Interstate 580, it’s impossible to miss the thousands of windmills spinning in the incessant breeze off the Pacific. The Altamont wind farm, built during the 1970s oil crisis, was an early example of the West’s clean energy potential. But there’s a startling unintended consequence of all […]
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The Visual West – Image 6
I had never really listened to a body of water talk; but this small reservoir at the confluence of the Uncompaghre and Gunnison rivers in Delta, Colo., insisted on a conversation as its ice-covered skin loosened and shifted under a strengthening Spring sun. It’s voice sounded like the deep groans of whales, punctuated by thunderous […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2011: Obama and the West
Inside Taft High
Take a trip inside the first high school in the country devoted to oil production with teacher Ted Pendergrass and his students. You can catch High Country Views approximately every other week. Available via our RSS feed, and for download now through iTunes.
Posted inFebruary 7, 2011: Obama and the West
Fast Times at California’s Petroleum High
It’s fifth period, just after lunch, and the students of the Taft Oil Technology Academy are in a pickle. The Oildorado festival, a celebration held every five years in October to honor the California town’s patron industry, is already under way, and they still haven’t built their float for Saturday’s parade. And this year’s Oildorado […]
Posted inRange
Quenching Colorado’s thirst
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Every winter in Colorado we watch our snowpack levels closely because they tell us how much water we’ll have in reserve for use on our farms and in our homes when the weather warms. Last week’s snowpack update showed that, due to a relatively dry January, supplies in […]
Posted inRange
Washington runoff causes stormwater stomachaches
By Lisa Stiffler Stormwater obviously causes problems for the environment and infrastructure, washing away salmon eggs in torrents of runoff and flooding basements. But does it threaten human health as well? You bet it does, and in ways that might surprise you. Polluted runoff flushes raw sewage across beaches, triggers blooms of toxic algae in […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2011: Obama and the West
Western court scraps intervention restrictions for enviro lawsuits
In mid-January, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals published a 13-page opinion with a simple message: mea culpa. A panel of judges tossed the little-known but long-standing “federal defendant rule,” which had limited or prevented private groups, local and state governments from joining environmental lawsuits. The 9th Circuit, which oversees hundreds of millions of acres […]
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Quieting the Grand Canyon cacophony
In early February, the National Park Service released a draft plan that promises to restore peace and quiet to big chunks of the Grand Canyon by sharply reducing helicopter and airplane tourism. Since 1987, the Park Service has been trying to cut down on noise from sightseeing flights over Grand Canyon and other parks, which […]
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Teaching climate change in coal country
In the Powder River Basin, on a vast, grassy plain between the Big Horn Mountains and the Black Hills, the city of Gillette, Wyoming sits on top of America’s largest coal deposit. So close is the city to the strip mines that students at Campbell County High School can look out the window and see […]
Posted inRange
Artificial Flooding May Help Grand Canyon
By David Frey, 2-09-11 When Glen Canyon Dam blocked the natural flow of the Colorado River to create Lake Powell, it unleashed a torrent of effects downstream, including in the Grand Canyon, where the once-muddy river became a blue waterway where native plants and animals struggled to survive. And they say the artificial flooding will […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Cultural exchange
OREGON Someday, there may be a Disney movie based on a black bear named Windfall who didn’t know she was a bear because she was brought up to be a princess, doted on by two loggers in the dense backwoods of Coos County, Ore. Writing in the Medford Mail Tribune, Mark Freeman says the father-son […]
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USDA to farmers: plant genetically modified crops!
The biotech fairy must be whispering a whole lot of sweet nothings (made with genetically-modified sugar) into U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s ear. Or something. In late January, the Secretary announced the USDA’s decision to completely deregulate genetically modified alfalfa, allowing it to be planted anywhere, without restriction. Just about a week later, […]
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“What’s good for the rancher is good for the grouse”
Last spring, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the greater sage grouse deserved listing under the Endangered Species Act, but declined to extend federal protections because resources were limited and other species were in more peril. At the time, the decision looked like the kind of politically savvy, centrist maneuver that has become […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2011: Obama and the West
A Nez Perce elder spreads love for lamprey
Elmer Crow waits patiently while a crowd of fifth-graders settles on the lawn outside the Morrison Knudson Nature Center in Boise, Idaho. One by one, the students stop squirming as they realize that the Nez Perce elder is watching them, hands folded behind his back. Crow’s face is solemn but his eyes are playful. The […]
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The Visual West – Image 5
At about 4 p.m. every Winter afternoon, a small herd of mule deer meanders from the sagebrush and snow-clad flanks of Western Colorado’s Mt. Lamborn onto the numerous irrigated pastures below. There, they eat everything they can — dried grass, alfalfa and exotic weeds — to combat the nightly cold and the lingering effects […]
Posted inRange
Caveat emptor with eco-labels
Last September I noted that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) had drawn the wrong kind of attention when it certified the Fraser River sockeye fishery despite opposition from scientists and environmentalists. The MSC tried to counter its critics, but the controversy instead joined a growing litany of complaints about the substance of its fish labeling […]
