Unraveling the mystery behind the Northwest’s channeled scablands
After the Floods
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Water overdrafts
To address groundwater situations such as that explored in your recent article, “Death By a Thousand Wells,” Congress must increase funding for the U.S. Geological Survey so it can conduct a comprehensive, nationwide groundwater mapping study (HCN, 10/26/09). As a nation, we are highly reliant on our groundwater. It accounts for 40 percent of our […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Well-grounded fears
While Cally Carswell’s piece might better have been titled “Death by more than a hundred thousand wells,” the issue is not the present number of wells but the potential for the future growth of this phenomenon (HCN, 10/26/09). The exempt or domestic well is increasingly being recognized as the fly in the ointment of prior […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
The wild home of hope
Rock Water Wild: An Alaskan LifeNancy Lord248 pages,hardcover: $24.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Alaska writer laureate Nancy Lord’s infatuation with that state dates back to a fourth-grade school project. Like so many transplants, she moved to the Far North to reinvent herself. Alaska’s remoteness, its low population density, natural wealth and often-harsh living conditions recall […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
The hunt is on
Despite protests, wolf hunts go forward in Idaho and Montana
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Roadless — for the seventh generation
“Roadless-less” attempts to portray a scandal that never existed in the roadless rule promulgation process (HCN, 11/9/09). The article depicts the series of judicial rulings upholding the roadless rule as merely party-line votes — a view that discredits the federal judiciary and wrongly suggests that the rule’s persistent vitality in the courts says nothing about […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Give language a chance
In mid-November, about 50 experts on the world’s endangered languages gathered at the University of Utah. They were tasked with beginning an ambitious effort to catalog these languages and produce an online, updatable database where they can be stored. The goal is to keep the languages alive. If that doesn’t work, they hope to at […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
For the love of forests
In response to Ray Ring’s article about the roadless rule, as for the money put into the effort to establish the rule, is this not the pot calling the kettle black (HCN, 11/9/09)? Is there some reason why environmentalists and the left should be too pure to use philanthropic funding and lobbying? Sadly, to my […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
For the birds
In response to your article “Audubon Feathers Fly in Arizona,” I want to make it clear that at no time has Desert Rivers Audubon taken a formal position on the land-swap issues described in the article (HCN, 10/12/09). We share many of the same concerns regarding the issues as the other Audubon groups in Arizona. […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
Changing of the guard
We’d like to recognize the dedication and vision of two long-time board members who recently decided to step down. Both hail from Boulder, Colo. Felix Magowan, who joined in 2001, brought substantial publishing and financial expertise to High Country News; he was the founder of Inside Communications, which published Velo News and other outdoor titles […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
A scientist’s view of change
Of Rock and Rivers: Seeking a Sense of Place in the American WestEllen Wohl267 pages, hardcover, $24.95.University of California Press, 2009. Ellen Wohl shudders when she sees houses built on gently sloping benches at the mouths of mountain clefts. She knows that such sites, with their incredible views, were created by past landslides, and hence […]
Posted inArticles
The Pesticide Wars
If the American Farm Bureau Federation has its way, the issue of whether herbicide spraying over water requires a Clean Water Act permit will be heard by the Supreme Court. A coalition of agricultural groups led by the Federation has petitioned the nation’s highest court to reverse an appellate court decision which found that such […]
Posted inRange
The Pesticide Wars
If the American Farm Bureau Federation has its way, the issue of whether herbicide spraying over water requires a Clean Water Act permit will be heard by the Supreme Court. A coalition of agricultural groups led by the Federation has petitioned the nation’s highest court to reverse an appellate court decision which found that such […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
A ride on the Big Love bus
What with sensational court cases about forced marriage and the Big Love television series, it was probably only a matter of time before locals cashed in on the fascination with “polygs.” Now you can pay a fee to take “The Polygamy Experience Tour” with guides who once lived under the thumb of Warren Jeffs, the […]
Posted inRange
Reader Photo – Cowboy Up
This week’s reader photo is a classic Western image from a great photographer who’s shared a bunch of neat shots up on HCN’s Flickr Pool. Check them out and add yours!
Posted inGoat
The law of necessity
Tim DeChristopher won’t be allowed to put global warming on trial when he’s on trial. DeChristopher majors in economics at the University of Utah. Last fall, he went into a BLM auction and successfully bid on 13 drilling leases, also driving up prices for other successful bidders. But he didn’t have the $1.7 […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Stallion valet needed
Every bar should have a hitching post; that’s just common sense, right? Or so reasoned a ranch hand in Worland, Wyo., who was cited for allowing his horse to wander through town while he hung out in a bar. According to the Billings Gazette, an indignant William Schellinger told police that “they should spend their […]
Posted inRange
Wyoming – the Uranium State?
They’re calling it a “uranium renaissance.” Wyoming is prepping itself for what is slated to be another boom in uranium mining for the fourth time in 60 years. Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West are all too familiar with energy boom and bust cycles. Just ask all the people who lost jobs in the oil […]
Posted inGoat
Spectrum of sexuality
On the night of June 16, 2001, Fred Martinez, Jr. was walking home from a party when he was chased into a rocky canyon on the outskirts of Cortez, Colo. The 16-year-old Navajo was cornered in the chasm’s nightmarish shadows and bludgeoned to death. Police found his body five days later. The crime shocked the […]