Conservative groups have often accused environmentalists of being lawsuit-happy, and of making big bucks off their court cases. Wyoming attorney Karen Budd-Falen took that claim even further this fall, asserting that green groups who win or settle federal suits get billions of taxpayer dollars to cover their legal fees — and that many of them […]
“Green fees”
Posted inWotr
Build in the wrong place and you’re on your own
Homeowners in disaster-prone zones need to be self-sufficient
Posted inBlog
The First Scrappy Years
“Americans are great people. But I think the readers of High Country News are the greatest,” wrote Tom Bell in the March 5, 1971, issue. He was responding to the letters and donations that readers and subscribers had sent following a grim assessment of the paper’s future. Click for larger version Bell had been at […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Housing hullabaloo
UTAH We’re not sure if Utah can help Arizona with its biblical interpretation skills, but it’s got a great idea for those empty mega-homes. The Beehive State is faring better than Arizona financially, but it’s still feeling enough pain to have some vacant McMansions. Rather than leaving them all to the rats, however, at least […]
Posted inMay 18, 2009: The Rise of the Minotaur
Stewardship award for HCN
Stewardship award for HCNHigh Country News is this year’s recipient of the Jane Silverstein Ries Award. The award, presented annually since 1983 by the Colorado Chapter of the Association of Landscape Architects, honors “a person, group or organization that demonstrates a pioneering sense of awareness and stewardship of land-use values in the Rocky Mountain region.” […]
Posted inRange
In Alaska, a health care model for the nation
It takes about 30 seconds of walking around the campus of the Alaska Native Medical Center to see that this is what the Indian Health system should look like across the country. “No,” a friend corrected me, “this is what the U.S. health care system should look like.” The Alaska Native Medical Center is two […]
Posted inBlog
Environmental justice, one neighborhood at a time
With the exception of vocal critics who deny the science behind climate change, most of the world is painfully aware that our industrial activities over recent decades have raised the earth’s average temperature. Our warming atmosphere is putting at risk life as we know it, prompting the people of the world to action. But long-standing […]
Posted inGoat
Charismatic pest control
First, check out Michelle Nijhuis’ new HCN story “Prodigal Dogs”, about the likelihood that gray wolves have returned to Colorado of their own volition, finding space to exist, or even breed, on a private ranch in the northwest part of the state. Then, get a load of this lupine scenario: In the February issue of […]
Posted inRange
Booms, Busts, and B.S.
I’d have to look at 60+ years of calendars, but suffice it to say this Grand Junction native has lived through his share of hometown booms and busts. Off the top of my head, there’ve been a couple of uranium booms and the oil shale boom that infamously ended with a Black Sunday in May […]
Posted inGoat
When Colorado just said No
The eyes of the world — or at least the NBC prime-time audience — are on Vancouver as that Canadian city hosts the Winter Olympics. For Coloradans, it’s a reminder of our state’s peculiar status as the only world’s only place that was awarded the Winter Olympics, but turned them down . […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
Cross(border) winds
California looks to Mexico for renewable energy projects
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
Water is for fighting
The article on the Westlands Water District is on the whole a good review of the problems arising from conflicting demands on a limited resource (HCN, 1/18/10). However, the balance between viewpoints is skewed in favor of agricultural interests by omitting the role of the Bureau of Reclamation, which encouraged agribusiness by failing to enforce […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
Visitors, after hours
It’s been cold, snowy and oddly humid here in Paonia, Colo., but a few intrepid souls still ventured out to visit us. Longtime subscribers Dave Morgan and Bobbie Sumberg dropped by our office while on a trip from their home in Santa Fe, N.M. Unfortunately, by the time they reached HCN, we’d already closed for […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
Quicksilver questions
The subject of mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and cement plants has always been fraught with uncertainties (HCN, 1/18/10). Industry influence at the congressional level often got transferred down as pressure on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Stephen Johnson, Bush’s administrator of the EPA, and his deputy, Marcus Peacock, seemed intent on reducing EPA’s […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
One long haul
On Jan. 7, a train hauled 136 containers of uranium tailings away from the old Atlas mill site along the Colorado River just north of Moab, Utah — the biggest load since the colossal cleanup effort began last May. Twice a day, locomotives chug off from a siding near the 439-acre site (130 acres of […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
Fast and loose with facts
Ed Marston’s piece on Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America can hardly be called a “review” (HCN, 1/18/10). Marston’s article simply rehearses — much more succinctly than Brinkley’s 900-plus pages — the life and political accomplishments of an amazing American leader. What Marston fails to do, is to evaluate […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
A dark and disjointed journey
Day out of DaysSam Shepard304 pages, hardcover: $24.95.Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. The short stories in Day out of Days, Sam Shepard’s new collection, have an unhinged, out-there appeal, reflecting their eclectic, mostly Western settings. Some individual stories are even named after their locations: “Williams, Arizona,” for one, and “Cracker Barrel Men’s Room (Highway 90 West).” […]
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
A nature lover’s bucket list
Lately, I’ve been struggling to stay positive about the climate. It’s not easy. The 190 nations at the November summit in Copenhagen failed to reach agreement on greenhouse gases, and Congress seems determined to avoid the issue. Worst of all, polls show cooling anxiety about climate change among Americans; these days, we are too consumed […]