CALIFORNIA Non-Californians might assume that living close to nature is a wonderful thing. Not so at Del Webb’s Sun City in Palm Desert, a 1,600-acre gated community for 9,000 people. Residents complain vociferously about sand in a nearby nature preserve that won’t stay put. “We are getting buried,” said Dennis DeBorde, 74, at a public […]
Heard Around the West
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Where’s Teddy when you need him?
What do Westerners keep in their bedrooms? My wife and I have the assorted bric-a-brac of family photos, a Navajo rug, a miniature Apache burden basket, and far too many books. We have a few plants, early drawings by our two boys, and a vintage log cabin syrup can, because we’ll never be able to […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Western patriots are rebelling against the Patriot Act
A quick opinion poll: The mass murders of Sept. 11, 2001, were allowed to happen because: A. Letting airline passengers carry potentially deadly weapons such as box-cutters was a bad idea. B. Airport security is a job too important to delegate to corporations. C. Cockpit doors were either unlocked or missing. D. Americans enjoy so […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
One good example: The reporter
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Big Story Written Small.” Few environment reporters can claim the beat longevity, dogged determination and data-crunching appetite of Karen Dorn Steele of The Spokesman-Review, the daily paper in Spokane, Wash. Steele’s pioneering work uncovered Cold War secrets at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Excellence
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Big Story Written Small.” Only nine English-language daily newspapers in the American West do an excellent job of covering the region’s big story, according to the Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources. In recognition, the institute gave these papers the first Wallace Stegner […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
One good example: The publisher
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Big Story Written Small.” “I’m a great believer in newspapers,” says “Butch” A.L. Alford Jr., publisher of the Morning Tribune in Lewiston, Idaho. Many publishers voice that faith, but Alford is among the few who really live by it. His grandfather and great-uncle […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Clearing the air
For more than 30 years, farmers in California have been exempt from the Clean Air Act. That’s about to change.
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Return of the King
Scientists finally have the seed they need to restore the beleaguered white pine — now they need a place to plant it
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
New Mexico: A nuclear homeland?
With open arms, New Mexico’s politicians welcome a new uranium-enrichment plant
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Dear Friends
CONGRATULATIONS Michelle Nijhuis penned her final words as HCN’s senior editor in December 2001, but she has not been sitting still since then. Michelle returned as our contributing editor last year; she’s also written for Audubon, The Christian Science Monitor and Salon, and has forthcoming articles in Smithsonian and Orion. Michelle’s feature story about urban […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
Talking about a revolution
For 33 years, High Country News has built its reputation on giving people news about the West’s environment. At times, it’s been a lonely business. Betsy Marston, who served as the paper’s editor from 1983 to 2001, says that in the 1980s, HCN was one of the only newspapers that consistently covered issues affecting the […]
Posted inOctober 13, 2003: The Big Story Written Small
The Big Story Written Small
After more than a hundred years of publishing, the West’s daily newspapers still fall short where it counts most.
Posted inWotr
A conservation elder celebrates 101
Perhaps all standoffs between so-called environmentalists and industry are clashes of mythic proportion, but the unfolding story of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge seems particularly so, a world-class drama whose players include migratory birds, caribou, polar bears, native Alaskans, eco-activists, oil executives and politicians. The outcome of this mythic tale is yet unscripted. If not […]
Posted inWotr
We need a sensible approach to fight wildfires
It’s the sweet time of year in northern Montana, late drying-out summer, easing into the rains of autumn, and in the soft low green hills of the Yaak Valley, on the Kootenai National Forest, the mornings are tinged, not unpleasantly, with the smell of wood smoke. Objects take on a golden glow, illuminated by the […]
Posted inWotr
Some issues are uncomfortably gray
My opposition to the Holcim Company’s proposal to burn more than one million tires every year at a cement plant at the headwaters of the Missouri River started as a no-brainer. I have three children growing up downwind of that plant. I float those rivers. Several friends work with the advocacy group, Montanans Against Toxic […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
It’s time for some solidarity
Our cover story focuses on farm fields and orchards in Washington state, where the plentiful harvest has an ugly, hidden cost, with workers often dangerously exposed to toxic pesticides. It’s an outrageous situation that nonetheless is typical around the nation. Between the lines, freelance writer Rebecca Clarren, who is a former HCN editor, finds larger […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
What child labor laws?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Harvesting Poison.” WENATCHEE, Wash. — José and Luis are only 10 and 11 years old, but they are already expert cherry-pickers. With three summers of experience working in the orchards with their father, they know how to pluck the cherries without harming the tree […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
Harvesting Poison
In the little-seen world of immigrant farmworkers, pesticides are a constant threat — and for the workers, the only options are shutting up or getting out.
Posted inWotr
Guts and grit will still get you to America
The most recent illegal migrant I’ve met was named Marvín Leonel Contreras. I spotted the 22-year-old during an early morning hike in the Santa Cruz River valley below my home in Rio Rico, Ariz. He was limping up the center of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. When he spotted me, he waved and smiled. He […]
Posted inWotr
How to dis-credit yourself without really trying
I made my first telephone call in the 1950s by turning a crank on a wooden telephone box. Some neighbors on the party line always listened; in that small ranching community of rural South Dakota, everybody knew everybody’s business. Perhaps for that reason, most of us dealt honestly with each other. We paid cash for […]