“All my life, I have always wondered why there is antagonism toward developers,” said billionaire developer B.J. “Red” McCombs recently during a forum on his proposed resort atop remote Wolf Creek Pass, in southwestern Colorado. I can answer Mr. McCombs, but first, some history: At issue is a massive project on an inholding (private land […]
A resident responds to a plaintive question from Wolf Creek developer Red McCombs
Posted inWotr
Stealth campaigns threaten our democracy
This election season in the West already looks as hot as a wildfire running on a dry wind. High-profile campaigns target congressional seats and governorships. But beware: The most important campaign runs in stealth mode. It’s the campaign by libertarians who want to cripple your state and local governments. They’re doing it with ballot initiatives, […]
Posted inWotr
Denial grips the Republican fringe
It’s a sad thing to see the fundamentalist wing of the Republican Party skew its values to line up with those of the money-driven Wall Street wing when global warming is at issue. But it is even sadder to see even the non-religious side of the GOP adopting true-believer doublethink to sustain these monetized values. […]
Posted inWotr
Garage sales lead to déjà vu all over again
At a friend’s garage sale several years ago, I saw a copy of Ivan Doig’s book, This House of Sky. I bundled it with my other purchases, but when she went to ring it up, I said, “Jean, I’m not going to pay for this one.” “Why not?” she demanded. I opened the front cover […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Dust in the wind
On Sept. 14, 1930, a strange dirt cloud swirled out of Kansas into the Texas Panhandle. Weathermen dismissed it as an oddity, but it marked the beginning of the worst long-term environmental disaster the United States has ever known — the Dust Bowl. That bleak period is chronicled in The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan’s […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
A world built on groundwater
The entire West is headed for a much drier future. Ogallala Blue provides a good sense of the bleak realities of a life of scarcity. Author William Ashworth focuses on the Great Plains states, which have for decades thwarted a notorious lack of rain by reaching into the massive Ogallala Aquifer. Today, those states grow […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
The merry — and meditative — farmer
In Blithe Tomato, California farmer Mike Madison writes about whatever strikes his fancy: neighborhood dogs, old tractors, and what it’s like to tangle with the local gophers for control of his tulips and olive trees. (He admits to losing 25 percent of his net income to the pests.) Madison’s collection of short essays makes it […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Che Guevara was no saint
I was appalled, even within the context of a book review, to read an uncritical and glowing assessment of Ernesto “Che” Guevara as a “secular saint” whose “ideas of social justice and democracy unite Latinos throughout the Americas” (HCN, 6/26/06: Nuestra America). High Country News has lost my sympathies forever. If all you know of […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Kempthorne: foot soldier
As a native Idahoan, there is no doubt in my mind: Former Idaho governor and now Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is purely and simply a foot soldier, a lackey for the money boys (HCN, 6/12/06: Interior’s new secretary — general or foot soldier?). On his watch, the quality of life in Idaho seriously deteriorated. I […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
SUWA’s on the right track
Jim Stiles claims the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) changed proposed wilderness boundaries in order to accommodate a mountain bike race (HCN, 5/29/06: Clinging hopelessly to the past). His claim is completely false. I was in charge of drawing the boundaries for this part of the Utah Wilderness Coalition’s proposal, and I drew them based […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
New Mexico’s greatest shame
I want to thank HCN for the excellent article on the Española Valley’s heroin problem (HCN, 4/03/06: Land of Disenchantment). Ten years ago, I was an archaeologist for the Española District. My survey partner and I would regularly find artifacts of heroin use on forest lands, as well as witness the heroin users themselves stumbling […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
The not-so-green saints
The LDS (Mormon) church’s opposition to a nuclear waste storage site near Salt Lake City hardly qualifies them as environmentalists (HCN, 6/26/06: Saints speak out against nuclear waste). This appears to be more a case of NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard). Here we have a religious group that advocates that church members have families […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Lunch with a blockhead
I was quite moved by Jeff Golden’s Writers on the Range column suggesting that we invite a blockhead to lunch (HCN, 5/15/06: Isn’t it time to bury the hatchet?). In fact, it inspired me to do just what Mr. Golden suggested: I e-mailed my favorite blockhead and suggested that we act on Mr. Golden’s suggestion. […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
HCN: Not just for wackos
I happened upon the March 21, 2005, issue of HCN at my local library’s freebie box, took it home, and enjoyed it. Your approach to environmental issues is fair and well presented. Henceforth, I am taking HCN off my Environmental Wacko list and putting it on my Resource list. Ross B. Yingst Lemitar, New Mexico […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Watch the river flow
After 18 years of wallowing in court, farmers and conservationists have reached a settlement that allows water to run again in California’s second-longest river. The Friant Dam, built in the 1940s, irrigates 1 million acres of rich agricultural land in the Central Valley. It also has dried up sections of the San Joaquin River for […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Falcon’s future rests on a definition
Endangered aplomado falcons in southern New Mexico may be stripped of their protections — by the very agency trying to bring the bird back to the state. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is moving forward with a controversial plan to release up to 150 captive-bred aplomado falcons as a “nonessential experimental population.” Because the […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
The Latest Bounce
New Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne won some friends in the environmental movement in June, when he junked a National Park Service proposal drafted under his predecessor, Gale Norton (HCN, 9/19/05: Revealed — secret changes to park rules). That proposal came under fire from greens, park employees and even some Republican lawmakers for relaxing rules regarding […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA What “whiskered blob of blubber” terrorizes swimmers, raids fishing nets and once in a while shoves people off boats? A sea lion is the answer, reports the Los Angeles Times, in its vivid story of a horde of “pit bulls with flippers” muscling their way into Newport Beach for the summer — again. Last […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Prey at the waterhole
I came around a corner and there was a mountain lion. It was a big male, tail longer than my arm. I stopped in dappled ponderosa shade. I was close enough that I could have tossed a pebble and hit the lion’s tawny block of a head. He was facing the other way, lapping water […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Dems contract case of self-delusion — or not
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The D Triple C is not targeting Wyoming, but the netroots are agog over Gary Trauner. What’s that? You need a translation? OK, for those not fluent in politicalese, here goes: The D Triple C, or DCCC, is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, an official arm of the Democratic Party whose raison […]