Armed with new research, traffic engineers are finding ways to stop highway carnage
Safe crossing
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
Dear friends
THE CHANGING EDITORIAL GUARD With this issue, we bid a fond farewell to Editor John Mecklin, who is headed to California and the challenge of starting up a new, policy-focused magazine. Since coming to HCN a year ago, John has implemented a long-needed revamp of our editorial and copy-flow processes, significantly broadened the scope of […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
Coming to a farm near you: Los Angeles
Each year, my family and I visit my father-in-law at his house in the desert, just over the mountains from Los Angeles. From there, we can’t see the great beast they call L.A., but we can feel it. The San Gabriel Mountains loom black against the city’s nighttime glow. At all hours, a steady stream […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
L.A. Bets on the Farm
Faced with unprecedented drought, the West’s most powerful water agency is mixing Wall Street tactics and rice farm supplies to hedge against Southern California’s risk of going dry.
Posted inArticles
Preble’s mouse protection jumps to Colorado
In Wyoming, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse may soon be regarded as just another rodent, but in Colorado, the mouse will continue to block the path of bulldozers. On Nov. 1, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to remove Wyoming’s Preble’s mouse populations from the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Colorado’s populations, however, […]
Posted inArticles
Highlighting Western heritage
The cottonwoods, willows, mesquites, and palo verde trees that once towered over the banks of the Colorado River near Yuma, Ariz., have returned. These native trees once again shade hikers and shelter wildlife, thanks to a massive wetlands restoration effort in the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area. Since the area was officially designated in 2000, […]
Posted inArticles
Black-footed ferrets are saved from extinction, but where will they live?
In late October, biologists in Arizona’s Aubrey Valley spent five nights in a row trapping and tagging black-footed ferrets, considered “the most endangered mammals in the United States.” They found 29, which means that there are probably about 70 ferrets altogether in this reintroduction area south of the Grand Canyon. According to Jeff Pebworth, wildlife […]
Posted inArticles
Soakin’ in southwestern Colorado
Centuries before prospectors flooded Ouray, Colo. in search of silver and gold, Ute Indians discovered the town’s true treasure: natural hot springs. Today, people flock to Ouray for those same “sacred healing waters.” And on an immaculate day in October, so did I, as part of a jeep caravan that toured the tidy town’s geothermal […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Risky dam business
I was pleased to see an article highlighting some of the great river restoration successes on Fossil Creek (HCN, 10/01/07). It is unfortunate, however, that the article also seems intent on creating a dam-removal controversy where one does not exist. River restoration practitioners – and the conservation groups that we often work with – are […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Don’t pop the cork yet
Despite the odd title – “A downside to downing dams?” – the relatively positive restoration story provided a glimpse into the inherent complexity of dam removal (HCN, 10/01/07). But there is much more to the Fossil Creek story. Getting to the point of dam removal is seldom easy. The Fossil Creek power plant decommissioning (done) […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Deer yes, cows no
I want to correct a misperception by Nathaniel Hoffman in his article entitled “Sheep v. Sheep” (HCN, 10/01/07). Nathaniel incorrectly describes Western Watersheds Project as an anti-grazing group. In fact, Western Watersheds Project is very much pro-grazing – just not by domestic livestock. Jon Marvel Executive Director, Western Watersheds Project Hailey, Idaho This article appeared […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
‘Men standing in the shadows began to weep’
Two authors explore wildfire deaths and liability
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Looking forward, looking back
William Kittredge is a man peculiarly suited to write about the West. He comes from a family that used the land as Westerners did long ago, before everything began to run out. The son of a rancher in southeastern Oregon, Kittredge grew into his father’s job, tried to manage the land and the men, and […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Mystery in Montana
Red Rover, Deirdre McNamer’s fourth novel, begins with a gunshot. Maybe it’s an accident, or maybe it’s a suicide. Then again, perhaps it’s something more. The setting is Missoula, Mont., 1946, and the deceased is Aiden Tierney, a former FBI agent who’d been fighting a disease caught while chasing Nazis in Argentina. “Someone said the […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Literary trivia of the West
Think you know your Western literature? Answer 15 or more correctly and count yourself among the true Western literati. 1) Where were David Brower, Charles Park and John McPhee camping in the first section of Encounters with the Archdruid? 2) Which fictional fishing village in Washington was the site of Kabuo Miyamoto’s trial for allegedly […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
Fall reading
We’ve pored over the latest from publishers and picked out a selection of books – by Western authors and/or on Western subjects – that we’d like to curl up with this fall. All have recently been released, or will be in the next few months; we’ve listed them here alphabetically by categories, according to the […]
Posted inOctober 29, 2007: Which Way West
No frigate like a book
This issue of High Country News departs from our usual fare – it’s still devoted to news and to truth, but of a different variety. News, not of mining and drilling and public policy, but of thought-provoking books and of authors well worth getting to know. Truth, not as found in facts and statistics, but […]