While energy companies scour the West for oil and gas, another, greener power source is on the rise: wind. Long regarded as expensive and unreliable, wind energy is now drawing the attention – and investment – of even the most conventional energy companies. In the last few years, technological advances and public policy have made […]
Wind power in the West gains speed
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
Freedom of the press is eroding before our eyes
On Sept. 1, the Idaho Statesman ran a fascinating expose of local CEO salaries. The amounts of money, stock options and the all-encompassing “bonuses” lavished on these public company executives were staggering and obscene. Not to mention, according to Statesman reporter Julie Howard, “generous severance, salary, pension and retirement packages.” Many of the companies the […]
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
Gated communities go in with a bang
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The impacts of rural gated communities go beyond any social insult to the people who live outside. These developments can have very real consequences for the land as well. One place it’s apparent is Montana’s Yellowstone Club, a vacation-home development so exclusive that its […]
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
How to make your own Yellowstone, Mexican style
A corporate behemoth races to restore a Coahuilan gem
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
Grand Canyon oases face faraway threats
Flagstaff, Tusayan may be tapping fragile desert springs
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
Washington citizens fight to save aging Hanford reactor
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Feds find shortcuts in nuclear cleanup.” The cleanup at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington has most citizens bidding a fond farewell to the nuclear era. But the planned closure of the Fast Flux Test Facility, a […]
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
Feds find shortcuts in nuclear cleanup
Tribes, environmentalists say Hanford is not a “sacrifice area”
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
Break open the gates
Former HCN staff reporter Florence Williams’ cover story in this issue looks at an unusual topic – gated communities. What, you may be wondering, do these have to do with the West? Quite a lot, in our estimation. The sequestered communities and neighborhoods that are springing up around the West represent a broader trend: the […]
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
Behind the gate
A look into the fortified rural retreats of the West’s moneyed elite
Posted inWotr
One big thing I’ve come to know about hunting
After he shot off his big toe, my dad lost all interest in guns. He lived to fish, but he never took me hunting. When I came of age I bought an army surplus British .303 rifle and went forth into the Colorado hills above Loveland to hunt. I had no idea how, really. I […]
Posted inWotr
Walking in Portland can be dangerous to your health
Last week another vehicle almost nailed me flat as a coffin. I was alone in a crosswalk in the center of Oregon’s most worldly city, Portland. I had been walking uphill and had made it six blocks west of the Willamette River. I get my exercise some days by hiking around downtown and combining errands. […]
Posted inWotr
It’s true: You can change the world
You hear this argument from drillers, miners and loggers nowadays: For every tree we don’t cut here, a forest falls in Siberia. For every proposed regulated mine we don’t dig in the West, a river system is poisoned in China. For every oil or gas well we don’t permit here, a rainforest in Africa is […]
Posted inWotr
What we don’t know about wildfire can hurt us
Fires still rage across the West. Grim-faced federal officials report over 6 million acres burned, twice the 10-year average. President Bush declared most of Colorado a disaster after Gov. Bill Owens pronounced the burned area in his state a “nuclear winter.” This news hits outdoor-loving Americans in the gut as we assume all natural resources […]
Posted inWotr
Ranchers are down, but don’t count us out
How are ranchers and farmers faring through this terrible drought? Will we quit farming and ranching voluntarily? Not on your life. For some, unfortunately, it will be their last year. Reading the advertisements for livestock auctions tells the story: “Selling due to the drought.” Ranchers almost never sell herds of mother cows, just a few […]
Posted inWotr
In New Mexico, Sid Goodloe sets an example for the federal government
Sid Goodloe grows grass. Lots of it. His ranch near the village of Capitan is a green oasis in a southern New Mexico desert seared by drought. It’s not that his land isn’t hurting. Ponds and creeks are drying, and hip-high grasses now reach only to the knee. Still, his ranch has some water and […]
Posted inWotr
For 60 years, J. David Love explored the West’s geology
When I was a wet-behind-the-ears field ecologist, my then-husband and I were posted to a Forest Service work center 50 miles southwest of Cody, Wyoming, where the road ends in the remote Absaroka Range. Our only human neighbors were the absentee owners of a nearby ranch, and for a few weeks, a raucous bunch of […]
Posted inWotr
On the road in the New West of Wyoming
The hitchhiker looked a little wild-eyed, or maybe shocked, when I stopped on the highway shoulder. “Where are you going?” I shouted. “Cody, Wyoming,” he said, staring through thick glasses at the canoe on my roof rack. He had no pack, no bag, nothing that identified him as either a local or an ordinary traveler. […]
Posted inWotr
Sea coasts rough sailing for breeding birds
Thirty thousand birds called common murres stand in penguin-like suits atop a single sea rock, crammed as tightly together as commuters on a bus. All drone tones as low and somber as monks: arg-arg-arg-arg-arg-arg-arg-arg. With a spotting scope, I watch the murres raise their chocolate heads, puff out their white breasts and point their bills […]
Posted inWotr
If it’s good for Florida, it’s good for Montana and the West, too
If Florida Gov. Jeb Bush were governor of Montana, would the Rocky Mountain Front get highest-level protection from future oil and gas development? You bet it would. This May President Bush announced that he intended to buy back more than $200 million worth of oil and gas leases off the Florida coast and in the […]
Posted inWotr
Can’t we all just give a little out on the trail?
“Can’t we all just get along?” With those words Rodney King became the world’s most unlikely idealist. Prior to that famous videotape of his beating at the hands of LA’s finest, Rodney was not only misbehaving, he was out of control. The man whose violent behavior led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots wondered aloud […]