LEONARD BURCH, who died in 2004, is widely considered the Southern Utes’ most influential leader. He was elected tribal chairman in 1966 and served for 30 years, with just one three-year hiatus to comply with term limits. SAM MAYNES, sometimes called the last real water buffalo in the West, was instrumental in getting two water […]
Some of the key players
Posted inRange
Push polls in the Rockies
I had read about “push polls,” but until last week, I had never been exposed to one. A “push poll” may sound like a real poll at first, but as the questions proceed, it’s obvious that the pollster is trying to influence your thinking, rather than find out what you’re thinking, which is what legitimate […]
Posted inGoat
Victory for the Creek Freaks
Several years ago, I followed a group of creek defenders down to a little stretch of habitat in Compton, Calif. – yes, that Compton, like Straight Outta Compton – where blue herons alighted on the lightpoles above a natural softbottom creek, a tributary of the Los Angeles River. My guides, from Southern California’s influential nonprofit […]
Posted inGoat
Calm before the storm
Drought, beetle kill, extended fire seasons, disappearing glaciers, early spring runoff—these signs of climate change flicker at the edge of Western life like the lightning flashes of an approaching summer storm. Late last month, the Western Governors’ Association, a nonpartisan organization that works with the governors of 19 western states and three U.S. territories, took […]
Posted inGoat
The West’s growing waistline
Every time the national obesity numbers come out, with the obligatory map showing Colorado as a beacon of skinniness in an increasingly tubby American population, I can’t help but feel a smidge of pride. Colorado! The active state! But the comparative numbers only tell a partial tale of the United States’ weight-gain woe. Even in the mountain state, […]
Posted inGoat
Jumping (to) the gun
There may be no verified wolves, yet, in Colorado, but you bet there are in the Beaver State. In the arid northeast corner of Oregon, two packs totaling 14 wolves have appeared and, of late, they’ve been worrying the locals. “You’ve got essentially a social experiment here,” Wallowa County Sheriff Fred Steen told the Oregonian […]
Posted inRange
Environmental Law’s Greatest Tragedy
Ask John or Jane Q. Public about how the environmental laws in this country are implemented, and you’re likely to get a blank stare. No one really knows, but with the BP spill and Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant leaks in the headlines, people are sure the system isn’t working. As a practicing environmental lawyer, […]
Posted inBlog
Representatives ask Obama to examine impacts of tar sands pipeline
In late June, the Obama Administration received a letter [PDF] from fifty members of the U.S. House of Representatives, demanding that the President take a hard look at the climate change impacts of a proposed oil pipeline that would more than double the United States’ consumption of Canadian tar sands oil. This 1,600-mile oil pipeline, called Keystone […]
Posted inWotr
Oil in the swimming pool
Once, during a time when I was separated from my wife, I lived in an apartment complex with a large and inviting swimming pool. One day, when I went to take relief from the heat at that glistening oasis, I found it fouled by motor oil. The apartment manager was there, shaking her head, speculating […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
A very fine house
COLORADOAs befits his plain-Jane name, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is a beige kind of guy, more comfortable in blue jeans than a suit. These days he’s running hard as the Democratic candidate for Colorado governor. After 12 days on the campaign trail in rural western Colorado, he happily reported to Telluride Watch that “sometimes you […]
Posted inArticles
Shadowing fishermen’s nets with a robot sub
New research sheds light on life at 90 fathoms
Posted inRange
Going by the law
With production supposed to start soon, I’ve encountered even more criticism of the Nestle bottled-water operation in Colorado’s Chaffee County, where I live. To make up for the water taken to the bottling plant, water that would have otherwise flowed down the Arkansas River to other users with senior water rights, Nestle made a deal […]
Posted inWotr
We need a solution to too many wild horses
As a kid growing up in Colorado, I was crazy about wild horses. I read books about mustangs and drew pictures of them. In school, I was thrilled to learn about the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which was passed in 1971, after “Wild Horse Annie” saw bleeding mustangs being hauled off to slaughter […]
Posted inArticles
Shades of hope for uranium’s forgotten victims
A proposed bill expands worker compensation
Posted inWotr
We’re still throwing horses overboard
During the 16th century when conquistadors crossed the ocean from the Old World to the New, their ships often became stranded along the equator at a place where the winds stopped blowing. To lighten their load, they would throw horses overboard. Eventually, the sails would fill with air and the voyage could continue. Over time, […]
Posted inGoat
New face, old body
The dissolution of the Minerals Management Service has led to a revival of two venerated bureaucratic traditions: infighting and hoarding of office supplies. While BP-owned oil continues gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the section of the Department of the Interior tasked with regulating offshore drilling and collecting royalties has been dissolved and divided into […]
Posted inRange
Pacific Salmon’s Deranged Geographies
Not long ago, Pacific salmon geographies of harvest, consumption, and reproduction were conterminous. Forten millennia, where fish spawned was also where they were caught and eaten, but in the last two centuries industrial fishing techniques launched harvestersdownstream and out to sea, while salting, canning, and freezing technologies expanded consumption across time and space. We now […]
Posted inJune 21, 2010: Immersed in the Wild
An infestation of the imagination, in a bark beetle lab
Trucker trades the open road for beetle research