Considering my family’s long connection to High Country News, I’m rather embarrassed to admit that I’ve only recently subscribed. I guess mountain state politics just make me so angry I didn’t care to be reminded of them. It’s gratifying to see a new generation of journalists take up the cause of truthfully reporting on Western […]
HCN editors love what they do
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Who’ll stop the burn?
It is unfortunate that Adam Burke did not stop in Kingston, N.M., and talk to any New Mexicans who have looked critically at the Gila National Forest’s “fire use” policy (HCN, 11/8/04: Keepers of the Flame). In Kingston he might have been shown other effective techniques employed by Toby Richards, in response to community concerns, […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Fire story left out the locals
“Keepers of the Flame,” the title of the Nov. 8, 2004, High Country News cover story, is a religious allusion in harmony with the devotional tone of the article. While professors from North Carolina and Washington are granted a few lines to caution that not all forests are alike, no one offers any criticism of […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Dogs could chase big cats again
A bill that would let hunters use dogs to chase down cougars is circulating in the Oregon state Legislature, pitting animal rights activists against hunters. In 1994, Oregon voters passed a ballot measure banning the use of hounds in cougar hunts. Dozens of subsequent efforts to weaken or repeal the measure have all failed. “I […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Tribe close to sharing federal bison refuge
Unless Congress derails a deal that took years to negotiate, on March 15, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will take over 10 of the 19 jobs at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Bison Range Complex. And the tribes will begin sharing management of 26,000 federal acres north of Missoula, where hundreds of […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Bees don’t grow on trees
Honeybees are in trouble, and so are the farmers who rely on them to pollinate an estimated one-third of the human diet — everything from almond and fruit trees to cantaloupes and cucumbers. Tom Theobald, who owns Niwot Honey Farm outside Boulder, Colo., says 30 percent of his bees died this year. Other beekeepers say […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Is Preble’s just another meadow mouse?
After finally scoring a place on the endangered species list, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse may have to hop back off it. Nine inches long, the Preble’s mouse inhabits streamside meadows along the rapidly developing urban corridor from Colorado Springs to Cheyenne (HCN, 8/30/99: Can the Preble’s mouse trap growth on Colorado’s Front Range?). In […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Heard around the West
CALIFORNIA Every time you turn around, the members of some worthy organization are shedding their clothes to pose nude for a calendar. The fun is in the photography, because while the librarians or firefighters may be naked, they are always strategically hidden behind some fire hose, book or fence. In Carmel, Calif., a group called […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Easterners tilt at windmills while Westerners joust with a real foe
While Wyoming ranchers and hunters are facing off with gas companies eager to drill their rangelands and hunting grounds, Massachusetts lobster barons are facing their own showdown with an energy juggernaut. Has the West found an ally in Eastern blue bloods and politicians such as Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.? Not exactly. In Wyoming’s Powder River […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Wastewater goes unwatched
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant.” On an average day in Wyoming, energy companies drill nine new wells to pull methane gas out of the state’s coal beds. In 1995, the state had 427 coalbed methane wells. Now, the total is more than 21,000, […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Whose rules rule on Otero Mesa?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant.” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, D, knows who his friends are. In 2003, speaking before the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, he told the assembled governors and industry bigwigs that they built his state’s budget surplus. And […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
State laws — and small staff — muzzle would-be watchdog
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant.” The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, charged with overseeing energy development in the state, is conflicted. The commission’s mission is to facilitate oil and gas production. At the same time, it is supposed to protect the public’s […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Ready… fire… aim!
A decade into a massive energy boom, the West decides it’s time to deal with the impacts on the land, air, water and wildlife
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Small tribe in Idaho weighs big water deal
Nez Perce will decide whether a $193 million package does enough for salmon
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Forest Service employees and activist face racketeering charges
Developers’ attempt to silence critics of condo project could make history
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Political appointee slashes forest protections
White River National Forest may lose safeguards for water and rare wildcat
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Dear friends
BOMBS AWAY! This issue’s cover story mentions Project Plowshare, the federal government’s campaign, during the 1960s and early ’70s, to find “peaceful” uses for nuclear bombs. Longtime HCN subscriber Chuck Worley of Cedaredge, Colo., remembers it well: Worley, now 87, and his former plumbing partner, the late Fred Smith, protested the use of nuclear bombs […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Energy without hypocrisy
I have a confession to make: I like natural gas. Every morning at five minutes before 6:00, I wake up to the gentle whumph of the gas heater kicking on in the family room. I then get out of bed, tap on my son’s door and call, “Time to get up,” and plant myself in […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Drilling Could Wake a Sleeping Giant
In Colorado, a gas company edges in on a radioactive blast site
Posted inWotr
Libby tested environmentalists, who came up short
“Goofy logic” from “Ray Rong,” one critic charged. “The most ridiculous piece of journalism I have read,” said another. “Trash” and “rubbish,” said others. Those blasts came from angry environmentalists. They’re criticizing a piece of news analysis I wrote recently, about an environmental-health disaster in Libby, Mont. I intended it to be provocative. In that […]