In the Pacific Northwest, trees probably will start falling faster than they have in nearly a decade. In August, the Bush administration committed to more than double the amount of logging in public forests west of the Cascades — including massive old-growth trees. The commitment came in a legal settlement with 18 Oregon counties and […]
Bush administration stretches a lawsuit to get the cut out
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Follow-up
Another Interior Department official is under investigation for a conflict of interest: This time it’s the department’s top lawyer, William Myers (HCN, 6/23/03). Watchdog groups say Myers, who represented public-lands ranching associations as a Boise lawyer and signed a recusal agreement after his appointment as solicitor, met with cattle interests seven times to discuss changes […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
The best little radio show in the West
An appreciation of Radio High Country News,and of the band of brilliant, visionary and completely nuts peoplewho made it possible
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Heard Around the West
UTAH Some Western wag once said that the most dangerous thing in a forest was a bunch of Boy Scouts with hatchets. In Utah’s Wasatch-Cache National Forest, make that heavy equipment instead of hatchets. When his son needed a service project to become an Eagle Scout, Scott Vanleeuwen proposed “cleaning up” an abandoned trail that […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Like Paul on the road to Damascus
The fact that cynicism and irony are deeply entrenched in popular culture is hardly headline news; most of us indulge in them from time to time, slide into a detached stance if for no other reason than self-defense. Harmless enough, probably, in small doses. But as I was walking past the Toyota dealership some weeks […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
The EPA needs an urban pit bull
You walk past a wrecking yard and see, on the other side of a high chain-link fence, not a pit bull with a mouth full of teeth, but a goldfish in a tank. That’s the image called up by Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt’s nomination as head of the Environmental Protection Administration. It’s a nomination that […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Rocky Flats, the sequel?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Courting the Bomb.” During public hearings this summer, Department of Energy officials repeatedly stated that nuclear bomb triggers could be built safely. Their “modern pit facility” would be, as its name suggests, fully modernized and superior to the department’s previous pit-manufacturing projects. Their insistence […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Building a new bomb factory could cause global aftershocks
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Courting the Bomb.” Building a new factory for nuclear bomb triggers could spark another arms race, say opponents of the Department of Energy’s proposed “modern pit facility.” They argue that the facility would violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which went into effect in 1970 […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
BLM sinks local input to drill Roan Plateau
Local and environmental concerns tossed by the wayside in western Colorado
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
In fire’s aftermath, salvage logging makes a comeback
Bush administration pushes to cut trees burned by Oregon’s Biscuit Fire, science be damned
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Mr. Middle Ground gets called to Washington
Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt nominated to head the EPA
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Dear Friends
Farewell, Radio HCN We’re writing today with both sadness and gratitude. We’re sad because, after years of hard work, we have decided to end our weekly radio program, Radio High Country News. But we’re grateful to you, our dedicated readers, because you believed enough to contribute to the Spreading the News Campaign, which allowed us […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
The return of the Nuclear West
The American West has always been central to this country’s nuclear weapons program. Our vast and arid landscape is where the first nuclear bomb was developed and tested in 1945. This is where the uranium used in nuclear bombs has been mined, where the components of much of our nuclear arsenal have been designed and […]
Posted inSeptember 1, 2003: Courting the Bomb
Courting the Bomb
The Bush administration’s new nuclear bomb factory is looking for a home — and the leaders of Carlsbad, New Mexico, are determined to give it one.
Posted inWotr
One way to get rid of Lake Powell
What’s in a name? Controversy, as I learned about 25 years ago when I began editing a newspaper in Breckenridge, Colo. I called one local attraction what I’d always called it — “Dillon Reservoir.” The nearby Dillon Chamber of Commerce told me that it was scenic “Lake Dillon.” I argued that it was not a […]
Posted inWotr
The strange allure of tipsy trips in Montana
Drinking and driving in Montana has begun to be something of a cliché. Locals tell out-of-state newspapers that we measure distances in beers. A Los Angeles Times story a few months ago included a quote from Bill Muhs of Bozeman: “Bozeman to Billings is a six-pack drive…. Crossing the state would be a whole case.” […]
Posted inWotr
The Bush administration is moving to mine our heritage
By any standard political measure, July was not the best of times for the protection of the last remaining wild places in this country. On July 16 came a ruling by a Wyoming court challenging the legality of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule — a policy to protect 58.5 million acres of untrammeled national forests […]
Posted inAugust 18, 2003: Where the Antelope (and the Oil Companies) Play
Gas, the clean energy?
If High Country News were in the habit of dispatching reporters to the Los Angeles area, we could begin our cover story there, in the metro hive of 17 million people. We could open with the average guy or gal, cranking on the air conditioner against the summer heat. Then we could follow the aftershocks […]
Posted inWotr
When does a deer become an elk? And other questions…
At what point did moose become marvels, bears become monsters and a 300-yard walk get to be strenuous? When did the human eye need a digital camera to properly experience the unimaginable proportions of the West? While working for the Park Service at Natural Bridges National Monument in southern Utah, and now for a concessionaire […]
Posted inWotr
The EPA needs an urban pit bull
You walk past a wrecking yard and see on the other side of a high, chain link fence, not a pit bull with a mouth full of teeth but a goldfish in a tank. That”s the image called up by Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt’s nomination as head of the Environmental Protection Administration. It”s a nomination […]