Lest it be outdone in the attacking-animal category, Boulder, Colo., can report that a “bitter bovine” attacked a Boulder biker. NewWest.net said a cow “charged a woman” on a trail and knocked her down. Fortunately, she wasn’t injured. “The cow had left the scene by the time rangers arrived, but hikers coming down the trail […]
The dangerous, dusty trail
Posted inGoat
West Nile virus and avian biodiversity
Researchers John Swaddle and Stavros Calos have found that high bird diversity is linked with low incidence of the West Nile virus in humans. Their study can be found online. Called the “dilution effect,” the link between biodiversity and disease rates is not completely clear, but scientists believe that increased diversity within an ecosystem reduces […]
Posted inWotr
How long do we wait for clean coal?
When Joe the Plumber donned a baseball cap displaying the words “Clean Coal” last fall, he may not have known it, but he was participating in a public relations effort sponsored by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. So far, that campaign has been a smashing success. The phrase “Clean Coal” was chanted over […]
Posted inGoat
Mule deer anti-decline?
A few years ago, an industry-funded study indicated that prolific natural gas development on Wyoming’s sagebrush-dotted Pinedale Anticline was hammering the massive mule deer herd that forages there in the winter. The herd, some 6,000 strong, had declined 46 percent between 2000 and 2004. A government-commissioned citizen oversight group pushed the Bureau of Land Management, […]
Posted inGoat
Happy birthday Wallace Stegner
Yesterday, Feb. 18th, would have been Wallace Stegner’s 100th birthday (he passed away in 1993). Stegner, arguably the most iconic of Western writers and conservationists, is best known for his books “The Spectator Bird” and “Angle of Repose”. His prose has inspired generations of Westerners, including the founders of HCN. His words are a key […]
Posted inGoat
Yucca Mountain Death Watch
Is Yucca Mountain about to implode? In this first month after the inauguration of President and Yucca Mountain-opponent Barack Obama, it’s been a little hard to tell. Bush-appointed radioactive waste-czar Ward Sproat left the Energy Department on cue, but the man who rose from the ranks to temp in his spot, Christopher Kouts, spent 23 […]
Posted inGoat
Put up yer dukes
The Western Business Roundtable hosted a conference call yesterday. It was touted as a “sneak peek” into a new analysis of the Western Climate Initiative. But if you’d dialed in hoping to hear a fresh critique of the cap-and-trade framework designed to encompass 90 percent of the emissions across much of the west and part […]
Posted inGoat
Mo’ Money…
I just took a gander at www.recovery.gov. It’s the website the new administration made so we could keep ourselves informed and hold the government accountable in light of the economic stimulus package. On the site, there’s a section that estimates the amount of jobs that will either be saved or created in the next two […]
Posted inWotr
At last, a Montana rivers bill that makes sense
A former professor of mine once said that building a house in a floodplain is like setting up a tent on the interstate just because no cars are coming by right at the moment. It defies common sense. Yet, across western Montana in recent years, sprawling trophy homes have spread like a cancer along the […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Wind setbacks
Local governments grapple with where to put wind farms
Posted inHeard Around the West
Those cantankerous locals
Visitors to a museum don’t usually expect to be attacked by wild animals, but then, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum close to Tucson is a very different kind of institution — outdoors, interactive and endlessly fascinating. Unfortunately, reports the Arizona Republic, a pig-like, tusked javelina that “did not belong to the museum” took a dislike to […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Rocky Flats lives on
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Half-life of Memory.” GRAND JURY FOREMAN WES MCKINLEY:“… I kind of like the bomb. We are the super country on the planet because we got the biggest weapon … I wasn’t a red-hot activist or had an ax to grind, or anything. … […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
The importance of memory
In Nicole Krauss’ sparse and astonishing novel, Man Walks Into A Room, local cops find a disoriented man wandering along Highway 95 in the desolate Mercury Valley of Nevada. After the officers get him out of the shimmering heat, we learn that the man, Samson, has a brain tumor that has obliterated a large chunk […]
Posted inGoat
Coyotes, elk, and octuplets
Summer nights wouldn’t feel quite right if the open windows did not allow me to hear the occasional howling of coyotes. The wild canines provide a sonic reminder that even though I live in town, it’s a small town surrounded by thousands of acres of wonderful Big Empty. But actually, the coyote howls convey no […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
A voice in the wilderness
For 20 years, Jim Stiles has published one of the most essential alternative newspapers in the West: The Canyon Country Zephyr, based in Moab, Utah (latest motto: “All the news that causes fits”). With sharp, see-all-sides reporting, the independent has taken on the excesses of extractive industry, the failings of the New West economy, and […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
Shooting a double victory
Full-Court Quest: The Girls from Fort Shaw Indian School: Basketball Champions of the WorldLinda Peavy and Ursula Smith479 pages, hardcover: $29.95.University ofOklahoma Press, 2008. Sixteen years before women in the U.S. gained the right to vote and long before women’s public sporting events were considered decent, a team of American Indian girls from Montana traveled […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
The struggle to remember the nuclear West
After toxic waste leaks, catastrophic fires and years of protests, Rocky Flats was raided by both the FBI and the EPA.
Posted inFebruary 16, 2009: The Half-life of Memory
A battle for the land — and soul — of the West
The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and RecoveryHoward G. Wilshire, Jane E. Nielson, andRichard W. Hazlett617 pages, hardcover: $35.Oxford University Press, 2008. It’s no secret that the West’s public lands are in deep trouble. The American West at Risk presents a familiar litany of problems: damage from overgrazing, […]
Posted inGoat
A place at the table for Native Nations
On December 31st, a 66-year old Cheyenne River Sioux man died after a doctor told ambulance drivers to “take him back to his residence or dump him in a ditch” because there wasn’t money for his care, recounted President of the National Congress of Indian Americans (NCAI), Joe A. Garcia, in his State of Indian […]