There is a house in Rawlins, Wyo., that won’t sell. It’s a bargain, too, at $135,000. In fact, there are 43 houses in Rawlins selling for under $150,000. This is a booming energy town with a housing shortage. People in Rawlins have money. Wyoming has, in fact, the fastest growing median household income of any […]
We’re in this together
Posted inGoat
Obama and public lands
Even though the West was a key battleground in the 2008 presidential election, our issues — public lands, water, endangered species, etc. — didn’t get a lot of attention from either candidate. And for the past three months, the economy has dominated the news. But our issues do appear in this interesting piece by Les […]
Posted inGoat
Look on the bright side
We have the technology to generate electricity from renewable resources, but most of our machines, from blow driers to conveyor belts, continue to run on coal. That’s because it is easier to create renewable energy than to transport it. Rigging a new power line from, say, a remote Nevada wind farm to a population center […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Desperate measures
With water shortages a constant, Westerners are looking at wacky (and not so wacky) ways to squeeze more water out of the sky and land.
Posted inGoat
Where geography still matters
As president-elect Barack Obama goes about picking a cabinet, we hear a lot about a book of popular history that was published three years ago: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Some parallels seem almost eerie. Abraham Lincoln’s main rival for the Republican nomination in 1860 was William […]
Posted inGoat
Howling Wolf on the West coast
The feature story in the November 10th edition of HCN – Still Howling Wolf – asked: Will Westerners finally learn to live with Canis lupus? The article looks for the answer in the attitudes of a variety of Northern Rockies residents in light of a lawsuit that returned the gray wolf to federal Endangered Species […]
Posted inWotr
The names of things and why they matter
If there is one thing Westerners like, it is naming things. Open up a topographical atlas and take a look: Every creek, butte, ridge, wash and reservoir has a name. We are fond of naming creeks Spring, buttes Pumpkin, ridges Red, washes Dry, reservoirs Cow, lakes Lost. We even re-name places that had already been […]
Posted inGoat
Bush’s last days
Accelerating oil shale development across 2 million acres, okaying an auction for gas drilling by three national parks, weakening endangered species protection, allowing more mining waste in rivers and streams, and exempting factory farms from air pollution reporting…just a few of the 53 “midnight regulations” President George W. Bush has launched in the past three […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Weekend Westerner
Name Arthur KruseAge 69Hometown Munich, GermanyOccupation Consultant to the high-pressure compressor company where he was sales manager for 32 years.Still mourned “Flites Gentleman,” Kruse’s quarter horse, who had to be put down after a bad fall on ice just before Christmas Eve four years ago. Other club members About 50 men and 35 women — […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Ultimate solution?
Desalination may finally be coming of age in a thirsty West. Take it with a grain of salt.
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
On Obama’s coattails
Westerners inspired by Barack Obama have a right to feel giddy these days: The history-making wave that swept the Democrat into the presidency Nov. 4 had a lot of impact around the region. It lifted a surprising number of other Democrats into offices that had long been held by Republicans, many of whom were seen […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Bearing witness on the border
Exodus/ExodoCharles Bowden, Julian Cardona312 pages, 115 black-and-white photos, hardcover: $50.University of Texas Press, 2008. There are many ways to write about illegal immigration. One way is to shuffle through Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports, cherry-pick the latest data and file an article from a safe distance. Another way is to step into the fray, boots-on-the-ground, […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Welcome, new board members
HCN is happy to announce that Wayne Hare and Jane Ellen Stevens recently joined our board of directors. A long-ago transplant from the East, Wayne became a “native Westerner” while working as a ranger with the Bureau of Land Management in western Colorado, patrolling the Colorado River and McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area. Prior to […]
Posted inNovember 21, 2008: Ultimate solution?
Peak economy
Just a few months ago, you could walk into the local hangout in any little Western town and hear the hanger-outers talk dramatically about “peak oil,” that long-awaited moment when petroleum production would decline enough to throw the world into turmoil. Someone else might have brought up “peak water,” too, what with global warming and […]
Posted inArticles
Slideshow: The waiting game
When Los Amigos del Parque was founded seven years go, about 20 immigrants waited for work every day near the New Mexico Department of Labor in Santa Fe. Now the human rights outreach group counts 60 or so immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala daily. As the economy weakens and construction lags, these laborers find more […]
Posted inGoat
Southern Utes discover a new kind of crude
The Southern Utes mean business. Their investment company, the Southern Ute Growth Fund, manages more than $1 billion in assets, including a set of real estate development companies and an oil and gas drilling business. Just this week, they opened a new high-end casino on their reservation south of Durango, Colorado. But the Utes are […]
Posted inGoat
Recession in the gasfield?
Last weekend, the family and I drove over to Grand Junction, Colo., about an hour away from here, to run some errands. GJ, as we call it, is the metropolitan and service center of Colorado’s Western Slope. In other words, it’s awash with malls, big boxes, strip malls and fast food chains, not to mention […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Gun owners take revenge
MONTANA. Dan Cooper, the co-founder and president of Cooper Firearms of Montana, a small gun manufacturing company in Stevensville, was forced to resign recently after stirred-up gun advocates called him a traitor and threatened reprisals against his business. Cooper’s blunder? He told USA Today that he supported Barack Obama for president and had donated to […]
Posted inWotr
Everybody wants to move to my town
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance was hardly telling Boiseans anything new last summer when it ranked the city fourth among the nation’s 10 best places to live, work and play. Over the last few years, we’ve gotten pretty used to being at or near the top of such lists: Forbes, Money, National Geographic Adventure, Inc.com, MSN BestLife, […]
Posted inGoat
Mambo like only bureaucracy can
Continuing a tradition of relatively strong stands on environmental degradation caused by natural gas drilling and other forms of development, the Rocky Mountain region (Region 8) office of the Environmental Protection Agency is now questioning a proposal to divert flows from Colorado’s only wild and scenic river: the Cache la Poudre. The agency contends that […]