An April decision by Montana’s Supreme Court legally established something that the scientific community has long agreed upon: that groundwater is connected to surface water. In 1993, Montana state legislators ordered a moratorium on new water-rights applications for surface water in the over-allocated Upper Missouri River Basin — along with all groundwater “immediately or directly […]
Montana court acknowledges water linkage
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
The Latest Bounce
The Navajo Nation has opened its doors to a new power plant — and waived its sovereign right to protect itself from future disputes over the project. In mid-May, the Navajo Tribal Council voted 66 to 7, granting a 50-year lease to Houston-based Sithe Global Power to build the Desert Rock coal-fired power plant near […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA Governing magazine calls Vernon, Calif., “the strangest town in America.” Although 44,000 people work there, only 93 people actually live in the tiny Los Angeles suburb; when election time rolls around, 60 people show up to vote. The Los Angeles Times wrote an exposé of the unusual town, which behaves more like a private […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Between the body and the world
I had to see it. I mean, how often are human bodies impregnated with resin and polyester, contorted into odd postures, and displayed for the public’s edification? It wasn’t appealing; it was irresistible. So one evening this spring, I plunked down $15 and joined the line for Body Worlds 2 at the Denver Museum of […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Science vs. science fiction — get it straight
Science and scientists are taking quite a beating in the public opinion department these days. Sometimes there’s a good reason for it. Consider the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. Every year, the geologists’ association honors someone “for notable journalistic achievement in communications contributing to public understanding of geology.” The oil geologists gave Michael Crichton their […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Craig’s excellent adaptive adventures
Name Craig Kennedy Age 33 Vocation Adaptive adventure-travel writer and accessibility consultant Home Base Steamboat Springs, Colorado Noted for Writing adventure-travel guides for disabled hikers, bikers, boaters, campers, paragliders … He says “(Accessibility) could always be happening faster. I’m just happy it’s happening at all. There are a lot of places we can go. ” […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Dust and Snow
High in the snowy San Juan Mountains, tiny particles have big implications
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Bomb test stirs up fear in Nevada desert
Proposed blast raises alarm over lingering radioactivity and talk of bombing Iran
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Dear friends
WELCOME, NEW INTERNS Having worked as a bicycle messenger, Wall Street broker, jeweler, car detailer and welder, Allison Gerfin is ready to try her hand at something new: an internship at High Country News. Allison wandered between the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts for a number of years, from New York City to Portland, Ore., […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
Nostalgia is a moving target
I recently realized that my kids have become old enough to be nostalgic. It was a strange feeling. We were driving past the old brick house we lived in five years ago, when my 16-year-old daughter said: “Remember when we used to swing under the old maple tree and see how far we could jump […]
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
‘Clinging hopelessly to the past’
The cantankerous gospel of Jim Stiles and The Canyon Country Zephyr
Posted inWotr
A real rain is what happens in New Mexico
It is a short flight from one extreme to another. My plane takes off in lush, green Portland, Ore., and lands two hours later in Albuquerque,N.M. As the plane comes over the Sandia mountains, another passenger, making a first trip to New Mexico, is startled to see a panorama of browns shining in the sunlight, […]
Posted inWotr
Raising Bella in springtime
Spring can be a time of quirky deception in the Rocky Mountains. All manner of creatures are born into this seasonal maelstrom, where soothing sunshine one moment can give way almost instantaneously to a howling snow squall. I pity the frail calves and lambs born wet on the High Plains. They trudge dutifully behind their […]
Posted inWotr
A silent victim of illegal immigration is our public lands
Just three miles north of Arizona’s border with Mexico, the Coronado National Forest is littered with the leavings of people on the run: empty plastic water bottles, opened tuna fish cans, sweatshirts, jars of foot powder. Near a scattered pack of playing cards, some turquoise underwear lies in an undignified tangle. A pair of small […]
Posted inWotr
Wamsutter: This Wyoming town never seems to die
Wamsutter, Wyo., population all of 261, is the poster child for Western boomtowns, though if you Google it, the computer asks, “Are you sure you don’t mean hamster?” Wamsutter used to be a rough-and-tumble railroad town, named in 1884 for an obscure Union Pacific bridge engineer. The promise of the railroad first brought surveyors, tunnelers, […]
Posted inWotr
Praise the Lord and pass the pancakes
Drive across the West along the Interstate and you’ll get the impression that sleeping, eating and filling up the gas tank are the activities we hold dear to our hearts. Of these three, however, the greatest seems to be eating. I’d stayed overnight at a motel no driver could see, much less imagine, just off […]
Posted inWotr
Ego climbing at Delicate Arch
In mid-May, the print and electronic media in Salt Lake City, Utah, reported the first ascent of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Delicate Arch is one of the most revered and recognized features in Utah, and if any natural feature deserves to be called an icon, it’s Delicate Arch. But on a recent Sunday […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
The puzzle of plate tectonics
Few people forget their first visit to the Grand Canyon. The chasm does not reveal itself until you are nearly at its edge. And then it appears, over a mile deep, with a barely visible Colorado River winding through its heart. Geologist and writer James Powell was as awestruck as anyone on his first-time visit. […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
It ain’t easy getting old
Cormac McCarthy discards his bitter nostalgia to tell a story set along the border in the 1980s.
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Finding hope in a new land
Mexican-born author Rose Castillo Guilbault first saw America from the window of a Greyhound bus. The 5-year-old sat next to her divorced mother, Maria Luisa, who had taken a distant cousin’s advice to heart: Head to El Norte. “Get out of this cesspool. It will pull you down and drown you. You’re still young. Start […]