The title of this blog has a horror movie ring to it. It even sounds a little too ridiculous to be real. But for High Country News staffer Tammy York, it’s the truth. This isn’t the sort of thing we usually report on, but it’s a pretty incredible (and tragic) story to have so close […]
A bear ate my old landlord?!
Posted inGoat
Natural gas, the miracle fuel!
Geez, it seems like it was just a few months ago that the natural gas boom was busting and the drill rigs were sent a-packin’. Natural gas prices cratered, thanks to the general economic malaise, and big shale gas plays in other parts of the country really dug into the West’s drilling boom. Meanwhile, all […]
Posted inWotr
You gotta dream big when you dream about oil shale
Things have quieted in the oil patch, and you don’t hear as many chants of “Drill, baby, drill” as we did last summer. Even so, there remains considerable interest in developing oil shale, as evidenced by a recent report from the Center of the American West in Boulder. America’s biggest deposits are roughly centered where […]
Posted inGoat
Stimulus funding targets irrigation efficiency
Drought intensified this summer throughout California and most of the West. Already over-allocated, water supplies are short across most of the West prompting irrigation cutbacks, dewatered streams, endangered species conflicts and protests in irrigation-dominated areas like the west-side of California’s San Joaquin Valley. Drought also exacerbates water quality problems; less streamflow means more concentration of […]
Posted inGoat
Don’t feed the animals
Sad proof that it’s not wise to feed wildlife: Last week, a housekeeper found the partially eaten body of 74-year-old Donna Munson outside of Munson’s Ouray County, Colo., home. Munson regularly fed nine bears, and had been repeatedly warned by officials to stop. Authorities have since determined that Munson was killed by a 394-lb male […]
Posted inRange
Welcome to the Grange!
I can still remember attending Grange suppers when I was a kid. Back then — that would be three decades or more ago — Grange halls were pretty ubiquitous in the rural West, especially farming country. They were usually simple buildings, almost stark; places where far-flung farmers could get together for dinners and to catch […]
Posted inAugust 17, 2009: From Corn to Cabernet
A slow-moving disaster
Communities struggle to adapt to a beetle-ravaged landscape.
Posted inGoat
A Solar Plant a Tortoise Could Love
On the Web site of GreenBiz.com, Mark Gunther describes Bill Gross as “a serial entrepreneur” and “one of the most interesting business people I’ve known.” Gross is the guy who gave Google its paid-search idea. He likes robots. He has Google’s money invested in his electric car project (only fair, right?). He also may be […]
Posted inGoat
Bribery slips under the border
It starts with a $50 bill. Then $5,000, just to look the other way at the port of inspections. Suddenly the formerly-loyal U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer has become yet another link in the chain of corruption, bribery, contraband and violence that plagues the southern border. And he’s not the only one. An Associated […]
Posted inGoat
West Nile figures trickling in
The Centers for Disease Control say that only 35 cases of the West Nile virus have so far been reported in the United States this year, but the season is just getting started: late summer and early fall are the times when most infections occur. Of the 35 cases, 19 are in the West and […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
2,000 miles of controversy
A 15-foot-high, rust-colored steel wall snakes across the scrubby desert landscape, dividing the twin border cities of Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Sonora. On the Arizona side, Border Patrol agents sit at the ready while reconnaissance airplanes drone overhead. On the Mexican side, border crossers driven by poverty lie in wait for nightfall. Then they will […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
National visit-your-parents-in-Paonia week?
Lars Lange of Pittsburgh, Pa., stopped by the office after spending time with his father and mother, Ulrich and Inge Lange, subscribers who moved to HCN‘s hometown about four years ago. They signed him up, too, and he’s been hooked ever since, he says. Lars used to work in coal mining, then went to law […]
Posted inGoat
A pleasing discovery
In general, I think it is no coincidence that the words “travel” and “travail” have the same root — the Latin word “tripalium,” a three-pronged instrument of torture. But on occasion, there are pleasant surprises. It was time for Martha and me to visit our daughters (and grandson) in Oregon. In the past, […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Scorpions take wing
And you thought the notion of Snakes on a Plane was unnerving? On July 19, according to the IndyStar.com, Douglas Herbstommer of Gilbert, Ariz., felt a sudden, sharp sting on his finger while flying from Phoenix to Indianapolis. He quickly realized what the problem was: an Arizona bark scorpion, whose bite, though painful, is very […]
Posted inGoat
HCN’s favorite Tweeple
You may be one of those people who thinks Twitter is some kind of narcissistic echo chamber. That it’s a place where folks broadcast their breakfast to the world in 140 characters or less. Well, yeah. Still, even the social media skeptics here at the High Country News have gotten swept into the Twittersphere and […]
Posted inGoat
“Impossible to remain silent”
When Laura Amos of Silt, Colo., was diagnosed in 2003 with a rare adrenal condition, she began to suspect that it had something to do with four natural gas wells less than 1000 feet from her home. After EnCana Corporation drilled the wells in 2001, the family’s tap water resembled fizzy, gray soda pop. Amos […]
Posted inWotr
I can’t wait to drink wastewater
I’m not really a water connoisseur. I can’t tell the difference between bottled “mountain spring” water and ordinary tap water, and all the various brands of bottled water taste alike to me. There is, however, one kind of water I’m just longing to sip. Unfortunately, it’s not yet on the market, but I’m hoping it […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Careful with that chainsaw…
If a hungry mountain lion comes after you, how should you respond? Most experts recommend that you stop and make yourself look as large as possible, aggressively defending your position. But Dustin Britton, a mechanic and ex-Marine from Windsor, Colo., didn’t need no stinkin’ experts; according to The Associated Press, he just picked up his […]
Posted inGoat
The rural West, on clearance
Statistics released by the USDA yesterday paint a sobering economic portrait of the rural West. The agency reported declines in agricultural land values across the country for the first time in more than 20 years. And it’s the Mountain states that have been clobbered worst of all. Montana farmland values fell a whopping 22.2 percent […]
Posted inWotr
Backcountry lessons from the Lost Forest of Oregon
The Scout we were driving across the treeless landscape was coated with dust so thick you couldn’t read the decal identifying us as scientists from a Forest Service Research Station. Had the decal been legible, an observer might have thought we were lost. We weren’t, but the forest that my work-partner, Doug, and I were […]