Communities struggle to adapt to a beetle-ravaged landscape.
A slow-moving disaster
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 […]
Posted inGoat
California sun and spray
California’s farmworkers support an $11 billion industry, making the state the nation’s leading agricultural producer and exporter. But their working conditions are often difficult – they’re exposed to harmful pesticides and dangerous levels of thirst and heat. Now, the LA Times reports that the state is considering approval of another hazardous pesticide, and it’s facing […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Striking finish
At 6 a.m. in the chilly dawn of the second Friday in July, about 140 people, wearing neon-colored petroleum-derived clothing and encumbered with packs and water bottles, start running. From the small southwestern Colorado town of Silverton, they head into the rugged San Juan Mountains, where they will attempt to complete a 100-mile loop across […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Why one Coloradan cares about fish quotas
When the young woman in the apron and the thick rubber gloves handed me that bag of oysters, I knew they’d be good. We’d been hanging out on the beach right next to where those oysters were farmed, and they were so fresh, their rough shells were still covered with mussels and barnacles. A good […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
The bare bones of life
The Southwest reminds one writer of Mars
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
The meat of the matter
Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory FarmsNicolette Hahn Niman278 pages, hardcover: $23.99.HarperCollins, 2009. When lawyer Nicolette Hahn was first assigned to sue gigantic polluting hog farms, she didn’t care for the idea. It sounded like an “immersion in poop,” she writes in her first book, Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and […]
Posted inJuly 27, 2009: The Most Cooked-Up Catch
Forager, feed thyself
Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century ForagerLangdon Cook224 pages, hardcover, $26.95.Skipstone Press, 2009. When Langdon Cook met his future wife, his lack of culinary prowess nearly chased her away. “Cooking meant heating up a box of mac ‘n’ cheese or opening a can of chili,” he confesses in the prologue to Fat […]