Refugee neighbors in Everett, Washington help each other
“I like America”
Posted inArticles
Court decision leaves tribes dangling
Critics say the Supreme Court continues to give justification to gut treaties and rob tribes of their land.
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Socialism and the West
This region was built on government subsidies and aid
Posted inGoat
Well hell, continued
Watch what you drink in the Yakima Valley. Groundwater contaminated with nitrates and bacteria, which is pumped by private well owners for drinking, is turning the lower valley into “the toilet bowl” of Washington, as one resident puts it. Dirty drinking water is a “widespread and long-standing” problem in the valley, according to the Yakima […]
Posted inGoat
Recession blessings
Christina Davidson, a correspondent for The Atlantic, has been touring the country on a “Recession Road Trip.” One recent stop was in Lolo, Mont., where local rancher Tom Maclay has been trying to build a major ski resort called Bitterroot on Lolo Peak. Some ski runs have already been cut. Now it […]
Posted inGoat
More on that big sucking sound from Vegas
If you’ve enjoyed HCN’s coverage of Las Vegas’ groundwater machinations, you should tune in to this interview. From KUNC, Community Radio for Northern Colorado: In the latest in our occasional series of conversations with the writers at High Country News, Editor Jonathan Thompson tells KUNC’s Kirk Siegler that (massive water pipeline) projects are back under […]
Posted inWotr
Some people just don’t get it
I gave up driving years ago on a peaceful Sunday morning in downtown Ogden, Utah, when I was T-boned by a truck driven by a drunk driver who abandoned the scene. Our Volkswagen was totaled. My 9-year-old son was in the hospital for a week with a punctured spleen. My left femur was broken and […]
Posted inWotr
The war between bicyclists and motorists
Most motorists courteously and safely share the roads with cyclists, but then there are all the obnoxious others, the ones who fill with rage when they see anybody on a bicycle on the road ahead. They not only think cyclists have no right to use public roadways, they also like to show their anger by […]
Posted inWotr
Stubbornness and the art of riding a bicycle
“I ain’t gonna wear no stinkin’ helmet.” I bet you thought I was going to say a friend of mine said that. Wrong. I said it, and I meant it. Bike helmets are dorky. They make you look like one of those UFO creatures with the bulgy heads who mutilate cattle. No, it’s worse than […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Religulous love and hate
San Tan Valley in the orbit of Phoenix is foreclosure-central these days, with 863 properties on offer. So it’s probably not surprising that a man’s prayer stand along a busy highway is doing a boffo business with commuters. In fact, Matthew Cordell, 38, is so much in demand that he has backed up traffic for […]
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo: Yellowstone Thermal Pool
I’m continually amazed and inspired by the beauty captured and posted in photographic form by High Country News readers at our HCN Flickr Pool. Not only are readers capturing the beauty of the West, they’re cataloging their fascinating explorations and keen observations of the landscape they call home. It’s getting harder and harder to choose […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Watts of water
Will pumped storage help power the West’s renewable energy boom?
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
A loophole you can squeeze a feedlot through
Growing up on a dryland wheat farm in eastern Washington, Scott Collin learned at an early age not to waste water. “I got more whippings when I was a boy for running the water well over than anything else,” he says. So Collin took notice last year when Easterday Ranches Inc. proposed a 30,000-head feedlot […]
Posted inGoat
Utah climate clash
When University of Utah professor Jim Steenburgh and a team of climatologists issued a scientific report on climate change in 2007 to then-Governor Jon Huntsman, they emphasized their “very high confidence” that humans were mostly responsible for recent warming patterns. But many Utah lawmakers didn’t take their word for it. And while the state’s new […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Death by a thousand wells
Unregulated wells strain short water supplies in Washington’s Yakima Basin and throughout the West
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Indians vs. Greens?
“Environmental activists and organizations are among the greatest threat to tribal sovereignty.” So said Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. in late September, shortly after he joined northern Arizona’s Hopi tribal council in “unwelcoming” environmental groups from those tribes’ lands, which sprawl across portions of three Southwestern states. The national press regurgitated the story with […]
Posted inGoat
Resilience, not sustainability
The annual Headwaters Conference at Western State College in Gunnison often presents some concepts worth chewing on, and this year’s gathering (held Oct. 16-18) was no exception. Headwaters, as I’ve come to understand it after 20 years of attending, is something of an idea fair for little mountain towns. For some time I’ve […]
Posted inGoat
Clean(er) coal?
In Alaska and Wyoming, two energy companies just announced plans to burn coal underground to create natural gas, then use the waste carbon dioxide to enhance oilfield production. The process, called “underground coal gasification”, has never been done in the U.S., but is used in Australia and other countries. The Anchorage Daily News reports: As […]
Posted inGoat
The high risk of leaving home
Last week, federal agents shot a sheep-killing wolf in Wyoming. That male (266M), from a Montana litter born in 2007, was the sibling of a female wolf (341F) that wandered across Wyoming, Idaho and Utah last fall. This past March, she was found dead near the northern Colorado town of Rifle. Sadly, the littermates’ fates […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
A guide to the past — and the future
A 1930s Montana guidebook contains lessons for today