“One of the reasons environmental protection is so hard is that it is so embarrassing,” says Oliver Houck, a law professor at Tulane Law School in Louisiana. It’s one thing to say you got ticketed for speeding, but another to confess “that you are using the Boise River as a sewer,” which explains why the […]
Heard around the West
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Ski area arms race dirties the water
Colorado critics say snowmaking should not be allowed
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Montana, feds find common ground for bison
Greens find no good news for the animals
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Weirdness abounds in Washington
Bush has already abandoned bipartisanship
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Service leaves endangered species in limbo
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt reshaped a powerful conservation tool
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Roadless plan slides to safety
Dombeck stakes out his vision for federal forests
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Paul Fritz left a unique legacy for the Park Service
We have reached a time when many conservation legends of the 20th century are disappearing. David Brower, the environmental giant, is a recent example. Now we’ve lost a lesser-known but very influential conservationist. Paul Fritz died quite suddenly on Christmas Eve from an undiagnosed brain tumor. He was 71. Fritz’s generation possesses a pure conviction […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Dear Friends
Remember the Alamo Tim Sullivan, who survived an HCN internship last fall, has known for a long time that his home state, Utah, is a little different than the rest. He called the office recently with the latest evidence. “I’m very worried about the Mexican Army coming across our borders,” Bob Scott, a World War […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Wind power spins into the energy mainstream
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to an essay, “Rearranging the grid.” While most of the power-strapped West looks toward fossil fuels for relief, wind power has quietly swept onto the energy playing field as a viable alternative. Next month, on the Oregon-Washington border, construction will begin […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Rearranging the grid
A rural electric co-op becomes a progressive force
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Backyard power struggle
Locals hope new energy sources will save their view
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Power on the loose
Deregulation sparks an energy revolution
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Heard around the West
Perhaps the Washington Post Magazine’s editors chuckled in anticipation as they assigned reporter Gene Weingarten the important task of finding a town that measured down as the “armpit of America.” Of course, it would not be the District of Columbia, home base of the daily, where more people are murdered in a year than anywhere […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Hecho a mano
Hecho a Mano, by James S. Griffith. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Paperback: $17.95. 104 pages. Driving through Tucson, Ariz., a visitor might not register the ornate front-yard fences and low-rider cars along the city’s palm-lined streets. Yet in the book Hecho a Mano, by folklorist Jim Griffith, what’s everyday comes vividly alive. Griffith takes […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Straw bales relieve housing crunch
For six years, Red Feather Development Group has been pushing a low-cost solution to the housing crunch on Indian reservations, where extended families often squeeze into tiny government-issue homes. One answer, according to the Bellevue, Wash.-based nonprofit, lies in building houses with bales of straw. The bales are a product of the wheat harvest on […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Get artsy in the parks
Over the years, the work of numerous artists has focused the eye of the public on national parks. Thomas Moran’s paintings helped swing the debate for protecting Yellowstone National Park. Ansel Adams’ photographs continue to introduce new generations of Americans to the beauty of Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. And Ann Zwinger’s writings and sketches […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Lifting the veil of secrecy
Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West, by Len Ackland, The University of New Mexico press. Hardback: $34.95. 308 pages. Most people know that the Cold War spawned a number of nuclear bomb manufacturing facilities in the spacious American West – places like Hanford in eastern Washington state and Rocky Flats just […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Republicans rebuff snowmobile plan
WYOMING Just days after a Dec. 12 U.S. Supreme Court ruling handed the presidency to George W. Bush, Republicans were trying to undo a piece of President Clinton’s land protection legacy. Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., attached a last-minute rider to an omnibus appropriations bill prohibiting the National Park Service from spending any money to enforce […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Salmon plan grows a few teeth
NORTHWEST The Clinton administration’s final rendition of a Northwest salmon plan is tougher than the last one, but it still doesn’t call for the dismantling of four federal dams on the Snake River in eastern Washington. Instead, the federal government will try other measures, including restoring rivers and streams where salmon spawn, and giving added […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
The latest bounce
The preliminary results of the 2000 census confirm that the West’s population is booming. Nevada topped the national list with a 66 percent increase in population since 1990. Rounding out the five fastest-growing states in the nation were Arizona, Colorado, Utah and Idaho. The results translate into political power: Nevada and Colorado will each gain […]