As the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act approaches, this Sept. 3, there is an overwhelming temptation to talk about iconic places like the John Muir Wilderness in California or the Bob Marshall in Montana. But out in the middle of a worked-over oil and gas patch south of Vernal, Utah, lies a place that […]
“W” in 2004: Taking stock of wilderness at 40
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Fees and our forests don’t always fit
The next time you visit your local public library, drive an interstate highway through the West or attend a city council meeting, imagine how frustrated and upset you’d be if you were charged a fee for the privilege of doing so. In spite of the tax dollars you already pay to support these entities, imagine […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Death of the San Pedro: Not if, but when
Note: this is a sidebar to a main story about the political struggles over protecting the San Pedro River. New evidence has surfaced that pumping in the Sierra Vista area may already be reducing groundwater flow to the San Pedro River. Water levels in seven monitoring wells on U.S. Army property have dropped by roughly […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Arizona elections stay ‘clean’
Despite a challenge from big business, the state’s public campaign program prevails
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Squirrels and scopes in the line of fire
The Mount Graham red squirrel suffers an ecological shock
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Will a mining-reform victory hold water in Nevada?
Long-term cleanup trust fund may get shortchanged
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Interior encourages BLM land sales
Selling public lands will let Western cities sprawl into new territory
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Dear friends
THE HCN FAMILY GETS A LITTLE BIGGER — AND MUCH CUTER The summer has been a fruitful one — and not just for farmers growing sweet corn, cherries, peaches and tomatoes. Within only 15 days, we were graced with two new members of the High Country News family. On July 30, Lydia Kestrel Puckett was […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Turning water inside-out
Our feature story this issue tells the tale of two cities — a city and a fort, actually — along the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona. As veteran growth reporter Tony Davis shows, the two places have had markedly differing success in dealing with a shared water problem. On one hand, there’s Fort Huachuca. […]
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
A Thirst for Growth
For decades, Sierra Vista, Arizona, has pumped groundwater like there’s no tomorrow. Now, to save the Southwest’s last free-flowing river, the city’s leaders must confront an age of limits.
Posted inWotr
How a resort town loses its soul
If not paradise, Aspen during the summer comes close. The mountains are dazzling, the gussied-up Victorian homes beguiling. The musical menu is rich, and a Nobel or Pulitzer prize-winner lectures nearly every evening. Everywhere are trails. It’s a heaven for tourists. But Aspen is no longer a tourist town in the conventional sense. A new […]
Posted inWotr
Western utilities beware: Coal is a risky business
It wasn’t long ago that I got one of those flyers about rates that comes with my bill from Xcel Energy, formerly Public Service Co. and now one of the country’s largest utilities, serving much of Colorado and several other Western states. I knew that Xcel was planning on building a huge and expensive coal-fired […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
The living, breathing natives who made Lewis and Clark
The most widely held and deeply ingrained popular image of Lewis and Clark also happens to be the most serious misconception of their expedition. In that image, they cross North America on their own at the start of the 19th century, somehow finding their way through an uninhabited wilderness and blazing a trail where no […]
Posted inWotr
At least life on the frontier wasn’t boring
I began thinking about the phenomenon we call boredom while watching public-television reruns of a provocative series called Frontier House. Its creators took three American families and placed them in the Montana wilderness for five months, from late spring to early fall. Then the families pretended it was 1883. They built log cabins and corrals, […]
Posted inWotr
Who took the ‘farm’ out of the Farm Bureau?
It’s an organization “preying upon the very people it claimed to help,” said Frances Ohmstede, 40 years ago, about the American Farm Bureau Federation. “Its policies lead rural America further and further into debt and poverty,” said her husband, Bryce. “It’s a financial empire built for their own benefit,” added Alfred Schutte, the Ohmstedes’ friend […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Careful with your covers
I have been a subscriber and very vocal supporter of HCN for most of a decade. A few years ago, through stories about water in the El Paso/Juárez metropolitan area and the Sierra forest plan, I got my VERY conservative father to admit that your coverage of the issues was comprehensive. So I bought him […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Hmmmmmmmm…
Is it funny or sad that where one person sees “Bush-bashing” another sees “reporting the facts?” Please keep “reporting the facts.” Agustin Goba Snowmass Village, Colorado This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Hmmmmmmmm….
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
No room for compromise
So Russell H. Train, head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Republican presidents Nixon and Ford, has said that Bush’s environmental record is so dismal that he would vote for Kerry? (“Polluter protection” is how he characterizes it.) And some readers are howling at HCN for Bush-bashing? Gimme a break! Frankly, I’m sick of the […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Objectivity is a moving target
Don’t lose any sleep over charges that HCN lacks objectivity. Middle-of-the-road pragmatists did not coax us out of the caves, launch the industrial revolution, or give birth to the idea that nature is more than a supporting cast of extras. All that and more, the good and the bad, was the work of advocates — […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Every newspaper has a slant
It seems some people who wrote you letters in the July 19 issue are under the impression that High Country News is supposed to be a “just the facts” newspaper with no slant. I was never aware that HCN ever claimed to be purely “objective,” “balanced” or not “ideological.” I’ve been a subscriber off and […]