A new effort near Tahoe, California, brings farmers and food buyers together to buck the system.
Economy
Posted inArticles
As oil prices drop, equipment theft climbs
Some experts point to laid-off workers, who know how much the items are worth.
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Should this national monument become a national park?
An Idaho town hopes changing Craters of the Moon to park status will boost its economy.
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Four charts that show how public land is good for rural areas
A study finds that personal income is rising faster in counties with more public land.
Posted inFebruary 2, 2016: Sagebrush Insurgency
Sugar Pine Mine, the other standoff
How a small-time mining dispute in Oregon readied a network of militias for the Malheur occupation.
Posted inArticles
Forest Service leaves control of water rights to ski resorts
How does industry control of water affect public land management?
Posted inJanuary 25, 2016: The Forever War
Coal company bankruptcies jeopardize reclamation
The public could foot the bill for billions in cleanup costs.
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Shifts toward clean energy threaten Montana coal town
Washington and Oregon utilities consider pulling out of Colstrip’s power station.
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Feds announce moratorium on new coal leases
Interior Department will examine the federal coal program in light of climate change.
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Economic downturns fuel Sagebrush Rebellion events
Natural resource-dependent rural economies help explain why disputes happen where they do.
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Nevada decision guts the state’s thriving solar industry
Electric utility pushed effort to sour economics of rooftop solar.
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Huge U.S. coal company declares bankruptcy
Bad investments, cheap natural gas and air pollution regulations led to Arch’s decline.
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Economic diplomacy in Sagebrush Rebel country
A new science and education center gives rural Utah a boost.
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5 things I learned about managing my money from covering the oil bust
A reporter relays tips from her time in the field.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
Highway injustice in Denver’s Latino neighborhoods
Poor districts have breathed I-70’s pollution for decades. Now they’re facing its expansion.
Posted inDecember 21, 2015: Secrets of the Deep
Two visions collide in Utah’s Wasatch Range
As ski resorts push for a mega-connection, backcountry skiers try to save some wild.
Posted inArticles
Locavores aren’t loved by everybody
In the last 20 years, the amount of locally grown foods consumed in the American diet has tripled, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and it now comprises 2 percent of the food consumed in the country. As with anything that’s popular, some have seen fit to attack this trend. Why do they do […]
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Big Ag stands on shifting ground
Between 2006 and 2011, farmers on the western edge of the Midwest’s farm belt in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas converted more than 1.3 million acres of grasslands to corn and soybean fields. Some people were seriously alarmed. Wildlife habitat was destroyed, and water, soil and the air itself suffered. But that conversion of […]
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Millions in debt, a community wonders if its water source will provide
This master-planned community must keep building to survive, despite the drought.