This week’s HCN Reader photo looks like a magical sunrise in a winter fairyland. Although much of the West remains cloaked in the fall-to-winter transition, bits of winter peek through here – we thought this image offered a nice preview of what’s to come. Add your photo to our reader pool on Flickr – we […]
Reader Photo: Ice on Hall Mountain
Posted inGoat
Commitment issues
Today, for the first time in 15 years, leaders from the United States’ 564 federally recognized Indian tribes met with political leaders in DC to discuss the problems that blight their communities: lack of adequate health care, lack of adequate employment, lack of, well, a lot of things. The day-long summit began with opening remarks […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Armed and drunk
It’s not a joke, though it sounds like one: A new law signed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, R, allows people to walk into a bar carrying concealed weapons, though once there, they can’t order a drink. The National Rifle Association’s Todd Rathner insists the law makes perfect sense: “Any time law-abiding gun owners can […]
Posted inWotr
On the road in lonely Wyoming
Here’s a typical Wyoming story: One night last week, I was heading down a lonely highway, driving the 100 miles from town to home. I had seen the dentist, bought cement so that we could repair our cattle-working pens, gone to the grocery store and checked on a friend who had just moved from her […]
Posted inGoat
Coming soon to MTV: The Oilfield Blowouts
Don’t ask me how I found this. Okay, go ahead and ask: I was actually hard at work researching a story and, during one of those long, winding, fruitless trips down Google lane, I stumbled upon this. It was at roughneckcity.com, which is such a cool site that I’m hesitant to share it with all […]
Posted inArticles
Audio: The joy of CX
The BLM’s categorical exclusions have allowed some questionable drilling permits.
Posted inHeard Around the West
Can’t see the forest for the skyscrapers
The last time anybody looked, no national forests grew in Washington, D.C., so why should the city get almost $3 million in stimulus funds to fight wildfires? Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso and other Western representatives are wondering, because their region is home to most national forests and the super-expensive wildfires that sweep through, destroying homes […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
Is the BLM practicing unsafe CX?
More than 6,000 drilling permits issued under questionable provision
Posted inGoat
Mules aren’t burros
Lately I’ve encountered two novels which annoyed me because they treated burro and mule as synonyms, which they are not. The most recent was Abandon, by Blake Crouch; the title of the other one does not leap to mind. Mules and burros are related, but they’re not the same animals. Start with the […]
Posted inGoat
Indian Eco-battles
Today the Arizona Republic wraps up an excellent three-part series on coal, water and green jobs conflicts on Indian lands in northern Arizona. Sunday’s story focuses on the Navajo Generating Station near Page, responsible for pollution haze over the Grand Canyon and ranked as the nation’s third-largest emitter of nitrogen oxides by the EPA, who […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Shocking steps
“Wildlife officials are counting down the days” until black bears head for the high country to den up for the winter, reports the Aspen Times. It’s been an exasperating year, admits the state’s Division of Wildlife. The bears have grown ever smarter about breaking into Aspen homes, forcing open refrigerators and even — three times […]
Posted inWotr
Phosphate mining: a toxic tradition
It’s a Stewart family tradition, passed down from generation to generation on their 880-acre ranch in southeast Idaho. A Stewart son escorts his unsuspecting girlfriend on horseback through a pine forest to a flat, treeless ridge the family calls the plateau. All the while, his family watches through binoculars from the living room, waiting for […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
Roadless-less
The campaign to protect unroaded forests gets torn apart by a Wyoming judge in ‘half-assed retirement’
Posted inArticles
The roadless rule ground game
Earthjustice editor Tom Turner’s book provides more details
Posted inGoat
Wanna hunt here? Just sign this petition
Landowners unhappy with government regulations are protesting this fall — by locking out hunters. Fred Hirschy, a Montana rancher, says he’s been losing cattle to wolves and is fed up with the lack of response from Montana’s wildlife department, reports The Montana Standard. For years Hirschy had allowed moose and deer hunters onto his land […]
Posted inRange
All Science is Political
Earlier this month, I was privileged to be part of a keynote panel at the 10th Biennial Conference for research on the Colorado Plateau. I chose, in part, to talk about the relationship of science and public policy making, because I had just finished writing an essay on that topic for the soon-to-be-published science assessment […]
Posted inGoat
Poisoned plains
When Kaput-D enters a rodent’s bloodstream, it causes the animal to bleed through several orifices. In a matter of weeks, the rodent might bleed through its skin, becoming weaker and more susceptible to predators. Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity submitted official comments to the Environmental Protection Agency against the pending approval of the […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
How the West made cheeseburgers cheap
Way back when I was in high school, kids used to snatch copies of the student newspaper right off the racks. They were literally starving for what was inside it. That doesn’t mean they were interested in the content. No, what they wanted was the coupon for McDonalds that appeared in each issue. And that’s […]
Posted inRange
A Halloween Horror
This is my first Halloween as a dad. As the October days have waned, I’ve grown increasingly excited to check out the nearby Halloween costume store to find a perfect trick-or-treat outfit for my new baby girl. The other day, with permission from baby’s mama, we finally went. The ghoulish masks, wicked wigs, and gory […]
Posted inRange
More gas, less grouse
By Courtney Lowery, NewWest.net guest blogger, 10-27-09 A new study shows that sage grouse, up for Endangered Species listing in February, will face even bigger population declines in the Mountain West if energy development progresses as Bureau of Land Management expects it to. The three year study, published earlier this month in the peer-reviewed PLoS […]