Regarding the “Disposable workers of the oil and gas fields” story, I worked as a derrick and floor hand back in 1968 in New Mexico. Drillers are always under pressure to get in and out of a hole, no matter what the cost. If you complain about safety or work conditions, you may find yourself […]
The rough lives of roughnecks
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Death on the road
As your “Disposable workers of the oil and gas fields” story says, no death should be overlooked or treated as unimportant. However, in comparison to the 89 deaths that occurred in the drilling industry from 2000 to 2006 in the states of Colorado, Utah, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, and North Dakota, there were approximately 10,600 […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Two weeks in the West
“We’re not out to destroy the universe. We’re here to make money. And if we can do that with minimal impact, that’s my job.” —New Mexico State Land Office Archaeologist David Eck on a proposal to drill for natural gas just outside Chaco Culture National Historic Park. Down in the Sonoran Desert, the blue-flowered lupines […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Dry to the bone
It was hard to get very excited about global warming this winter. Despite record warm temperatures in the East and a steady diet of dire reports from scientists, here in western Colorado the snow and cold started in October and kept up through February, without so much as a hint of a January thaw. “We […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Montana puts limits on national Trout Unlimited
One of the great things about living in Montana is state law allowing public access to any stream, no matter whose monster home lies alongside it. But just a few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from Montana Trout Unlimited saying the national group wanted to back away from involvement in any dispute — and […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Bay bags his way to the top
NAME: Brian Bay AGE: 23 VOCATION: Front-end grocery store manager and full-time student WORLD CHAMPION: of grocery bagging HOBBIES: Coin collecting. Goes to work with a pocketful of change and trades it out for interesting coins. FAVORITE MOVIES TO QUOTE FROM: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Princess Bride, Three Amigos and Dumb and Dumber One […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
An endangered Endangered Species Act?
Top management at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tries a regulatory overhaul, outraging environmentalists
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
The sacred and the toxic
Tohono O’odham tribe fights a hazardous landfill
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Dear Friends
THERE’S LIFE AFTER HIGH COUNTRY NEWS We’ve recently gotten exciting news from some former HCN interns. Patrick Farrell (summer 2005) just landed a job as a video journalist at the New York Times. Katie Fesus(fall 1996) now teaches English at Lake Tahoe’s Sierra Nevada College and directs ARC (Adventure, Risk, Challenge), an outdoor adventure and […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Phoenix Falling?
Will Phoenix continue to boom … or bust entirely? The answer may lie in the ancient Hohokam city buried beneath.
Posted inArticles
Ravens to threaten tortoises nevermore
The last person to see a raven feasting on baby tortoises in the California desert may be a federal agent, looking through the scope of a rifle. Ravens have been charged with contributing to the decline of the threatened desert tortoise, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to restore balance by shooting, […]
Posted inWotr
The strange attraction of the “breakfast thing”
I am sitting in Marie’s on a Tuesday morning in an eastern Colorado town, sipping weak coffee. In a few minutes, the other members of our “breakfast thing” will show up, and we will eat and talk. I have been doing this for two centuries. Okay, it’s been about 10 years, but those years spanned […]
Posted inWotr
Why would a federal agency trash itslibraries?
It takes a special talent to make the topic of library management controversial, but the Environmental Protection Agency seems to have a real knack for self-inflicted wounds. EPA gave itself a black eye and enraged librarians throughout the country last year, when, without public notice or congressional consultation, it began the process of dismantling its […]
Posted inWotr
The decline of logging is now killing
If the connection between logging and closing libraries isn’t clear to you, then you don’t live in Oregon. Here, the connection is the stuff of crisis, the subject of daily news stories and of increasingly desperate political maneuvering. It is a crisis that reveals much about changing expectations and attitudes concerning government services, taxes and […]
Posted inArticles
The Klamath dams by the numbers
Removing the four salmon-blocking dams on the Klamath may prove even cheaper than regulators first thought. The California Energy Commission just re-ran the numbers, comparing the costs of removing the dams versus retrofitting them for fish passage. The results, released March 24, say it would cost PacifiCorp $114 million less to breach the dams than […]
Posted inWotr
Too much can be asked of a river
What do China’s Yangtze, India’s Ganges and America’s Rio Grande have in common? All share the dubious distinction of making a “Top 10” list compiled by the World Wildlife Fund of rivers in trouble. On the lower Rio Grande, where the river forms the border between the United States and Mexico, the challenges include widespread […]
Posted inWotr
When wealthy landowners and locals collide
Does a trout know who owns the body of water it lives in? This is not a Buddhist riddle. The answer is: Of course not. All a trout, elk or black-footed ferret cares about is whether the water or land can sustain them. Some of us have forgotten that unadorned fact. Motivated by laudable concerns […]
Posted inWotr
Grassroots activists battle a national environmental group
One of the great things about living in Montana is state law allowing public access to any stream, no matter whose monster home lies alongside it. But just a weeks ago, I received an e-mail from Montana Trout Unlimited that said the national group wanted to back away from involvement in any dispute — and […]
Posted inApril 2, 2007: Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields
Heard Around the West
MONTANA Let’s get this straight: Was a unicorn behind the wheel of a truck that crashed in Billings? A deputy prosecutor told a judge that story in all seriousness, asking for a high bond because he thought the driver had claimed a unicorn was driving. But the prosecutor misunderstood a colleague’s e-mail using the term […]
Posted inApril 2, 2007: Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields
The single women who homesteaded the West
Thanks to Western movies and popular novels, stereotypes come easily to mind when you think of women of the early West. There’s the saint in the sunbonnet, the soiled dove, the schoolmarm and the rancher’s daughter. Or maybe you remember dramatic figures like the Lewis and Clark guide Sacajawea, or Calamity Jane of the perfect […]