I’m still laughing at one of the photos in “Mobile Nation” (HCN, 3/15/10)! Was that a bit of editorializing in the photo of the gentleman in his land-yacht watching the “male enhancement” commercial? Was the author trying to make some sort of Freudian connection between the size of a guy’s RV and his, uh … […]
Size matters?
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Plus they never have to mow the lawn
The only thing missing in “Mobile Nation” was the real reason all those communal, neighborly, flag-waving, self-identified not-liberal RV settlers are so happy (HCN, 3/15/10). First, they don’t have to work any more. Second, there are no children around. And last, the government gives them a place to live for almost nothing. So much for […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Pika politics
What’s the connection between pika populations and climate change? It’s complicated.
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Hard times reshuffle the political deck
A couple of years ago, signs asking “Why Does Ritter Hate Oil and Gas?” sprouted along western Colorado’s roadsides, just as Gov. Bill Ritter promised new regulations designed to temper the state’s frenzied drilling boom. Industry boosters claimed Ritter would regulate them right out of the state. And oddly enough, within the year, many companies […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Crossing over
A city girl moves to the mountains for love
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Building a more effective environmental movement
The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism from the Spotted Owl to the Polar BearDouglas Bevington285 pages, softcover: $35. Island Press, 2009. In The Rebirth of Environmentalism, activist Douglas Bevington explores the relationship between large national organizations like the Sierra Club and small “grassroots biodiversity groups” like Northwest California’s Environmental Protection Information Center. Bevington describes the […]
Posted inWotr
Floyd Dominy, the colossus of dams, dies at 100
Former Bureau of Reclamation commissioner built Glen Canyon dam
Posted inWotr
The burbling air show of migrating snow geese
I was visiting Choteau, Mont., with my friend, Bill, when a cheery checkout clerk said, “I bet you’re here for the geese.” Our blank looks confirmed our out-of-towner status. “Snow geese,” she said. “They’re migrating north again now.” She told us how plump Arctic birds gather by the thousands in the wheat fields near her […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Sinclair flare up
Accident-prone refinery burdens Wyoming town
Posted inBlog
EJ for Earth Day
I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try. – Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of […]
Posted inWotr
Warning: Water policy faces an age of limits
Change comes hard to Western water policy. The Prior Appropriation Doctrine, interstate compacts, groundwater law, the “law of the river” — all of these seem set in stone in the minds of the region’s policymakers. Of course, the West’s rivers aren’t bound by such a static existence. Indeed, they are changing in fundamental ways, opening […]
Posted inBlog
Out of tragedy, High Country News soldiers on
“1978, the year the Senate shortchanged Alaska?,” asked the cover headline of the Sept. 8 High Country News issue that year. The article outlined the Senate “horsetrading” over the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, the bill that in 1980 ultimately created or expanded 15 of Alaska’s national parks and preserves. The article contained only […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Reduce, reuse, re … steelhead?
A lunker case of deja vu
Posted inGoat
Next stop: water on tap
This weekend, thousands of Navajos will pile their trucks with 55-gallon drums and drive to the nearest watering station. If they’re lucky, the lines will be short, the coin-operated water pipes will work, and they’ll return home with enough to drink, wash and cook for another week. Hauling water is a common chore in the […]
Posted inWotr
A scrappy community weekly hangs in there
These are challenging times in the newspaper industry, but from where I sit as editor and publisher of the tiny Silverton Standard & the Miner, high in the Colorado Rockies, things don’t seem all that bad. Well, at least not much worse than usual. This is the oldest newspaper in the western part of the […]
Posted inRange
Listing the wolverine
On a sunny day in late March 2010, a young wolverine known as F3 poked her head out of the mouth of a log-box research trap in Montana’s Absaroka Range, looked around, and then, in a blur of snow, surged off into the wilderness. Around her neck was a new GPS collar that we’d fastened […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Balancing act
A look at how Western states are managing the financial crisis
Posted inHeard Around the West
High Country …
We here at High Country News want your money and will sink pretty low to get it. But we have yet to resort to armed robbery. There was some confusion about this in recent months as the FBI doggedly pursued the High Country Bandits. And though the guy in the security camera photos looks remarkably […]
Posted inApril 26, 2010: Nevada's Pot of Gold
Nevada’s Golden Child
Is the state’s hardrock mining industry losing its grip?