Instead of giving us a hypothetical letter, why not call the presidential candidates and ask them where they stand on Western issues, and then tell us (HCN, 1/21/08)? You could have played an important role in informing us about where the candidates stand on the issues. I believe the most important challenge in the West […]
Hello, Clinton? Hello, McCain?
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
Run with it, obama
I thought Ray Ring’s article on a potential national energy policy was excellent (HCN, 1/21/08). It was the sort of piece that made me glad I recently renewed my subscription. Now if only a presidential candidate would take it from here. Robert Fisher Corona, Arizona This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
Biofuel won’t do it
BIOFUEL WON’T DO IT Sugar cane’s efficiency in producing ethanol is 800 percent compared with 130 percent for corn, as others have mentioned (HCN, 2/4/08). Currently, our sugar cane lands in Hawaii are fallow or growing eucalyptus trees. But even if we replanted cane to all these lands and also to suitable lands in our […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
Power from the underground
The West is just beginning to tap its potential for clean, renewable geothermal energy
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
Two weeks in the West
“God gave man the ability to manage wildlife.” — Wayne Wright, an Idaho Fish and Game commissioner, in the Idaho Statesman. The political animals – the kind that walk on two legs and thump their chests while exhaling promises – could fill this page. But hip-deep in the campaign season, you might like a break […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
Men with boots
The stories Russ told always ended with a big chunk of uranium ore being dumped on the table, its yellow dust collecting as a thin film on top of my coffee. And they always began with the phrase: “There used to be 10,000 men with boots on in this town.” It was Silverton, Colo., 1996. […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
The short life of Lisbon Valley
August 1995 After four years of collecting environmental data, Summo USA Corp. applies to the Bureau of Land Management for a permit to mine copper in Lisbon Valley, roughly 40 miles southeast of Moab. March 1997 The Moab BLM office approves the mine, but enviros appeal. June 1998 The Interior Board of Land Appeals rules […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
Death of a mine
In Utah, a major new copper producer goes belly-up in just two years
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
A Rico renaissance
Post-mining economy threatened by proposed moly mine
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
Mining the West
A glimpse at mining data — including workforce, mining salaries, metals revenue and production, minerals produced in 2007, the metals and minerals one person uses in a lifetime, miscellaneous statistics, and specs on the world’s biggest dump truck! Download the PDF » Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story: Reluctant Boomtown […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
Dear friends
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK We’d like to know what topics are important to you, and what you think of the job that High Country News is doing. Please visit www.hcn.org/survey and complete our brief reader survey today. We’ll use your input to improve our understanding of what our readers want and need. NEW BABIES, […]
Posted inFebruary 18, 2008: Reluctant Boomtown
Reluctant Boomtown
Mining abandoned Superior a decade ago. Now the industry is ready to return, but this little Arizona town is not sure it wants it back.
Posted inArticles
Primer 1: Politics
From the outside – and even for many in the West – the West’s politics are usually seen as swaths of unbroken primary colors. The coast is blue (which in today’s color coding means Democratic) and the interior is Republican red, dotted here and there with liberal bastions such as Aspen, Boulder and Santa Fe. […]
Posted inArticles
Mining reform has one foot in the door
For only the second time in 136 years, Congress is nearly unanimous in its call to update the 19th century law that still governs the country’s metal ore mining. “There’s a pretty broad sentiment in both parties and both houses that the mining law of 1872 needs to be reformed,” says Luke Popovich of the […]
Posted inWotr
Hank, the non-cow dog
A story in my local Montana paper, the Missoulian, described the growing problem of family pets harassing wildlife and livestock. It seems that the expansion of urban life into the wild is taking its toll on deer, elk, cattle and all kinds of burrowing creatures. The story really hit home as my dog Hank, aka […]
Posted inWotr
Bombing away in Socorro, New Mexico
Folks living in Socorro, in remote, central New Mexico, are regularly jolted by the sounds of car bombs and calculated cave-ins. It’s all cooked up by the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, a division of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, known here simply as “Tech.” “Energetic materials” refers to anything that […]
Posted inWotr
Lake Powell’s sandstone walls speak after 232 years
Across the Southwest, Native Americans, explorers, miners, settlers and Mormon pioneers have left dozens of inscriptions on rock walls. Now, a rare historical marking has been authenticated on one of the canyon cliffs that surround Lake Powell in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The inscription was carved when the United States was only six months […]
Posted inArticles
The fur is flying
Michael Moss’ 64-acre goat ranch sits on the edge of BLM land in southwestern Oregon. It’s “healthy cougar country,” he says, and he’d like it to stay that way. That’s not something you’d expect to hear from most livestock owners, but Moss is a member of Goat Ranchers of Oregon, a group that advocates smart […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2008: Unnatural Preservation
Unnatural Preservation
In the age of global warming, public-land managers face a stark choice: They can let national parks and other wildlands lose their most cherished wildlife. Or they can become gardeners and zookeepers.
Posted inWotr
Running the gantlet of Homeland Security
Albuquerque’s international airport, dubbed The Sunport, ranks as one of the smaller and friendlier airports around. That’s important for Westerners like me. Since traveling became an uncertain business, being met by “our” people behind the counter, in shops and at the gate, goes a long way to ease nervousness for infrequent flyers. This is particularly […]