“I’m sucking up to you. But you know, when you’re at 13 percent, you’ve got to do something.” —New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, seeking support for his Democratic presidential campaign at an Aug. 22 forum at the University of Nevada-Reno, where he vowed that if he wins, he’ll fund all kinds of education programs. All […]
Two weeks in the West
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
Effluent, effluent everywhere
Even here in the mountain valley splendor of Paonia, Colo., where the people are pleasant, the summers fine, the winters mild and the autumns spectacular, things go wrong sometimes. A few weeks back, everyone in town came home to find a piece of colored paper taped to his or her front door. The door-postings announced, […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
Ashes
We’re winding our way up the Poudre Canyon in my old four-wheel drive – a strange group, to be sure. There’s me at the wheel, hoping this morning will go right. There’s my 14-year-old son, silent in the backseat, watching the canyon flash by. There’s dark-eyed Eva. And there’s the dead woman, Mary. Mary wanted […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
Making an effluent market
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Facing the Yuck Factor.” A sprawling town whose population has grown by more than 50 percent since 2000, Prescott Valley, Ariz., is thirsty and lacks a reliable surface water supply. In most of Arizona, such a combination is no barrier to growth. But Prescott […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
Take back these drugs – please
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Facing the Yuck Factor.” Americans love their medications. Pharmacists fill more than 3 billion prescriptions a year in the United States, and consumers also buy huge quantities of over-the-counter drugs. Many of those pharmaceuticals enter wastewater when people urinate. Others end up there when […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
He loves nature. And dams.
NAME Paul Ostapuk AGE 50 HOME BASE Page, Arizona VOCATION Engineer and meteorologist at the Navajo Generating Station, part of the Salt River Project NOTED FOR what he does when not paying the bills. Ostapuk is the Arizona director of the Old Spanish Trail Association, a member of the Glen Canyon Natural History Association and – […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
Raising the bar for lawyers
State by state, Native Americans in the West are making sure lawyers know the law in Indian Country
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
Cutting trees to save the forest
Leveraged buyouts are the newest tool in forest restoration
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
Dear friends
WELCOME, NEW HCN INTERNS Fall intern Christine Hoekenga is happy to be back home in the West. The Boulder City, Nev., native earned a double major in environmental science and rhetoric and media studies from Willamette University in Salem, Ore. While there, her passion for scuba diving led her to a semester abroad in the […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
Facing the Yuck Factor
How has the West embraced water recycling? Very (gulp) cautiously
Posted inArticles
Free range
Livestock foraging on 160 million acres of public lands could roam more freely than ever, thanks to a recent policy change at the Bureau of Land Management. On Aug. 14, the BLM granted eight new “categorical exclusions,” designed to speed up the approval process for a slew of activities on public lands, including grazing, logging, […]
Posted inArticles
Red Mountain miracle
In the late 1800s, some 3,000 people lived and worked in the Red Mountain Mining District near the top of Red Mountain Pass between Silverton and Ouray. Just about every acre was clear-cut, built upon or mined. Today, the miners are gone and aspen trees and tundra plants have reclaimed most of the area. The […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
A Climate Change Solution?
Beneath the Columbia River Basin, a real-life trial of the uncertain science of carbon sequestration
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
Twenty views of the West
Best Stories of the American West is a collection of Western stories in which gunfights are outnumbered by basketballs, and the cowboy hats end up mangled beyond recognition. In other words, it’s not about the West as exemplified by John Wayne; it’s about a place in which people actually live. In compiling this first volume, […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
Sounding the alarm for nature
This year marks the 45th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s landmark book, Silent Spring. Twenty-seven years after her death, Carson – who would have been 100 this year – continues to influence Americans’ daily lives. Her legacy is reflected all the way from the Environmental Protection Agency’s restrictions on pesticide use down to […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
Owl right, we’ll try
As a long time reader of High Country News, I have become accustomed to your quality journalism. Your feature-length investigative pieces are generally excellent. At the same time, I often find myself growing weary of all the negative environmental news. Such reports are undeniably important, yet they begin to wear on the reader after a […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
Wolf lit 101
Bryce Andrews not only misrepresented Aldo Leopold in his “Living precariously with wolves and cattle” (HCN, 8/20/07), but he also failed to acknowledge the other side of the public-lands grazing issue: Many of us would rather have wolves and healthy rangelands than cattle. Leopold’s famous essay “Thinking Like A Mountain” from A Sand County Almanac […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
They’re probably afraid of the dark, too
The letters responding to “The New Conservationists” were all equally noteworthy (HCN, 7/23/07). Most were insightful in that we all recognize organizations like Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and their henchmen like Don Peay are anything but conservationists. What is missing from the analysis, though, is SFW, Peay and his ilk in other Western states, […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
Karl Malone’s next vacation home
I was “appalled” to read Will Nobauer’s letter regarding your article on Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife (HCN, 7/23/07). In the letter he calls these people “stupid looking white-trash rednecks” and “psychotic mental retards.” Such a wonderful example of intelligent discourse. It came as no surprise to me to find out that good old Will […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
Won’t you be my (solar) neighbor?
The concerns about solar panel arrays being ugly is a bit ironic, as viewed from the developmental sprawl and congestion in and around our cities (HCN, 7/23/07). However, are there any examples of “community solar,” whereby neighbors have combined efforts to locate a group of panels on a compatible site? Dan Rathmann Cincinnati, Ohio This […]