A huge construction crane towers over a corner of the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories campus in Hamilton, a small town south of Missoula. As the crane slings buckets of concrete, a $66.5 million building takes shape. It’s part of the federal government’s ominous-sounding Project BioShield. In locations ranging from Texas to Massachusetts, […]
Biohazard lab takes shape
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Indian tribe to share refuge with feds
At a time when Indian tribes are making headlines for taking control of their ancestral lands, the Nisqually Tribe plans to share some of its land with the federal government (HCN, 3/7/05: Tribe close to sharing federal bison refuge). In 1996, the tribe worked out a deal to buy a 310-acre inholding in Nisqually National […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Follow-up
Keep your eyes peeled for yellow snow on the ski slopes: The Coconino National Forest supervisor has approved the use of treated wastewater for snowmaking at the Arizona Snowbowl ski area (HCN, 2/21/05: Snowmaking on sacred slopes stirs controversy). Resort owners hope to boost profits by keeping the slopes open during dry times. Leaders of […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Heard around the West
COLORADO Whatever else you think about Aspen — wondering exactly when it ceased to be the rough mining town it once was, or marveling at the sight of men wearing fur coats so long they look like bears walking — there was always the presence of writer Hunter S. Thompson in nearby Woody Creek to […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
A look at the West, in the funhouse mirror
Life was much simpler when I viewed the battle to “save” the West through a black-and-white lens. As a young environmentalist, it was easier for me to condemn my adversaries’ land ethics and beliefs when I was unwilling to honestly scrutinize my own. And it was easier to attack my adversaries when I didn’t know […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
What’s worse than the worst-case scenario? Real life
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Arizona returns to the desert.” In the early 1990s, the U.S. Geological Survey and several other government agencies funded a little-noticed study of the effect of a major drought on the Colorado River. Researchers were particularly interested in its impacts on Lakes Powell and […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Colorado couple turns healthy profit from healthy beef
Ten miles north of Durango, Colo., the property lines of the James Ranch are obvious. Red cliffs, cottonwoods and the Animas River frame one side, while to the south, west and north, new homes and a busy state highway push on the fence lines. It’s a common sight in many Western valleys: ranchers stubbornly clinging […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
A leak-proof fuel tank? No such thing
Leaking diesel taints drinking water on the Idaho-Washington line
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
BLM land sold without study
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Nevada desert to be sold for debt relief.” On Feb. 9, several developers paid a surprising $47.5 million, more than four times the projected price, for 13,000 acres of federal land just north of Las Vegas. The […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Nevada desert to be sold for debt relief
Bush wants proceeds from public-land sales sent to Washington, D.C.
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Peace breaks out on the Rio Grande
Settlement between enviros and Albuquerque puts water in the river
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Dear friends
A VISITOR Newspaperman Bob Wick stopped in at High Country News recently. Wick, who lives in Sierra Vista, Ariz., and his brother co-own almost 40 small newspapers across the country, including the nearby Montrose Daily Press. Wick is an environmentalist as well as a publisher, but what seems to consume him most is sculpture: He […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
The best-laid plans
In a meeting I attended last year with a group of editors and reporters at the Arizona Republic, one writer asked an incisive question: “How do we get people to take water issues seriously?” In neighboring New Mexico, drought had dried up rivers and forced water rationing. But Arizona itself seemed flush. The state had […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Arizona returns to the desert
The worst drought in a century could bring home the true costs of growth
Posted inMay 16, 2005: Unsalvageable
Cows versus condos — Northwest style
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “In the Washington woods, managers face a catch-22.” Like ranches elsewhere in the West, small tree farms in Washington encompass some of the best fish and wildlife habitat: lowland areas close to streams. An estimated 40,000 people […]
Posted inWotr
You’ve come a long way, bison
With its return to the nickel after 67 years, the bison bears messages that went unmentioned during the coin’s recent unveiling. The new nickel was designed to commemorate the government’s 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition — initiated by Thomas Jefferson — whose face also appears on the coin. But although bison provided […]
Posted inWotr
Gov. Schwarzenegger is the nation’s newest Progressive
Heeee’s back. Only this time, Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn’t come from the future as the Terminator. He’s come from the past, a time when some politicians took contentious issues straight to the people. Schwarzenegger has announced that he’s fed up with the Democratic-majority state Legislature and will appeal directly to voters to impose a cap on […]
Posted inWotr
Spring
My friends warn me of the perils of moving to the mountains outside Boise, Idaho, in December, just as winter rolls into the Northwest. “You’ll get depressed,” they say. “And don’t expect to see us until spring.” My friends are city folk. The worst they can imagine is snow piling in the drive and power […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
You say you want a railvolution…
In 1981, when I got my first car — a used Toyota Corolla — I took a trip out West. For a prisoner of the sprawling suburbs of St. Louis, Mo., nothing could have been sweeter than to put that sea of homes in the rearview mirror, and fill the windshield with glorious views of […]
Posted inWotr
The secret of Wyoming winters is the snow-eating chinook
I’m often asked by relatives and friends back East how I stand the winters in northwestern Wyoming. I put on a stoic facade and tell them: It’s tough, but we Cody folks can suck it up. What I don’t mention is that an average of 300 days of sunshine annually isn’t hard to take, nor […]