It’s well past midnight on the first night of my new job, and I’m looking out the window of a Ford van heading north on I-25, radio tuned to Radio Romantica, the undisputed slicked-back pompadour of Denver radio stations. We speed through the city and sprawl of the Front Range in these wee hours, just […]
Working among the West’s newcomers
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Oh, the things you see
Oh, the things you see when the water drops. Right in front of the Nature Center in Pueblo, Colo., ancient cars lurked semi-submerged and jutting up from the Arkansas River, reports the Rocky Mountain News. Thanks to record low flows, a dozen volunteers were able to yank out a 1950s-era Cadillac convertible and a Depression-era […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Some see economic upside in loss of farm water
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. CALEXICO, Calif. – Jose Valles may not know it just yet, but he’s on the cusp of what could be a radically different Imperial Valley economy. Valles, a field worker for 14 of his 32 years, is learning English and training to become a […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Sherman Alexie in his own words
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “The big show with braids.” On Hollywood: “Hollywood is the most liberal community in the history of the world. And yet the way they conduct their business is Machiavellian. Donald Trump and the Enron executives would fit […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
The big show with braids
The success of his film Smoke Signals offered Native American writer Sherman Alexie an entree into the world of Hollywood. It was a short sojourn. Alexie’s interest in busting stereotypes ran headlong into the film industry’s weird conservatism, which favors target-marketing over story line and big-name stars over talent, casting Filipino actor Lou Diamond Phillips […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
A modest forest proposal for President Bush
President Bush just whistled through southern Oregon for a quick look at our catastrophic wildfires and a high-profile policy address at a county fairgrounds. He repeatedly told a cheering crowd that he’s for “common sense” forest management to stem “endless litigation.” His boldness inspires me to come right out and say it publicly: I, too, […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Island Hoping
Island hoping In Arizona and New Mexico, a unique complex of 27 mountain ranges encompasses vast stretches of desert scrub, grasslands and oak woodlands, and is home to more than 75 species of reptiles. Called the Sky Islands (HCN, 4/26/99:Can science heal the land?), the landscape inspired Aldo Leopold to write that ” … these […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Museum collections hit the roof
‘Curation crisis’ could stall construction projects on public lands
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Drought unearths a water dinosaur
Colorado’s Front Range reaches for a share of the Colorado River
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
The BLM stabs at a tired land
Bush’s push for oil and gas development touches down on the San Juan Basin
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
A legend of the land
A legend of the land He’s been described by writer John McPhee as the “grand old man of Rocky Mountain geology,” and by longtime friend and HCN founder Tom Bell as a man you meet “once in a lifetime.” Born in Riverton, Wyo., in 1913, and raised in the rich landscape that became his life’s […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Balancing act
Balancing Act The cover story in this issue is the first of a two-part series about a topic that High Country News has been covering for a long time: California water. More specifically, it’s a look at the Golden State, post-Bruce Babbitt – the Clinton-era Interior secretary who negotiated massive water agreements in California and […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
The Royal Squeeze
For nearly a century, the Imperial Valley’s wastewater has kept the Salton Sea alive. Now, the push to make California more watertight may threaten this wildlife haven – and Imperial’s agricultural economy.
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Backlash
Local governments tackle an in-your-face rush on coalbed methane
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Golden in drought denial
Dear HCN, The August 19th issue’s front-page photo of the Denver Water Department signboard imploring people to take action and conserve water reminded me that yes, we are having a drought here in Colorado. Well, there have been other clues as well, such as the scorched brown hillsides, a summer with almost no measurable rainfall, […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Forward from the Pleistocene
Dear HCN, Thanks for the 13 May issue, with the discussion of how past changes in North American ecosystems affect decisions we now face in the West. You might say that those who forget prehistory are doomed to repeat it. The letters from Linda Driskill (HCN, 6/24/02:Review gives only one view) and Kali Kaliche (HCN, […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Forest thinning urgent
Dear HCN, In the long run, many well-intentioned environmental groups, with their stubborn resistance to sound forest-management techniques, will do far more damage to our forests than the timber industry. Loggers often cut too many trees, but many environmentalists, in their resistance to cutting any trees, may bring about a total conflagration. I’m a nature […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Defenders defends wolves
Dear HCN, In response to Joy York’s letter to the editor, “Wolf killing hard to swallow” (HCN, 7/10/02:Wolf killing hard to swallow), we are stunned to see an accusation that Defenders of Wildlife is “in the business of killing wolves.” How that statement could possibly be made about an organization that has done so much […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Great Basin belongs to all of us
Dear HCN, Michelle Nijhuis was mistaken when she wrote that the recent transfer of some Death Valley National Park land to the Timbisha Shoshone “was the first time the Park Service had ever ceded land to a tribe” (HCN, 8/5/02:Another way to win back the land). In 1975, about one-third of Grand Canyon National Park’s […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Cross lawsuit is not petty
Dear HCN, Myles Traphagen, (HCN, 6/24/02:Cross lawsuit divisive, petty), commenting on a May 13 article, “Does desert cross cross the line?” characterizes as “frivolous” and “petty” the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit whose object is to have a six-foot metal cross removed from its unlawful installation in California’s Mojave National Preserve: “In an age where […]