Letter to the editor

Just wanted to commend Leah Sottile and HCN for an excellent article, “Did James Plymell Need to Die?” (March 2021). I worked at the County Alcohol and Drug program in Albany, Oregon, years ago, and it seems the same difficulties in service delivery are still at play. Issues of homelessness and chemical dependency are complicated […]

I wanted to thank you for the February issue “End of the Line.” I grew up in Billings, Montana; saw Colstrip more times than a teenager should; read the Global 200 Report to the President shortly after it came out; and hiked Canyonlands in the smog from the Four Corners plants. I’ve been a rabid […]

As someone who lives in a city that depends on Colorado River water for its residential water supply, I worry about the trends of increasing demand and decreasing supply. I was disappointed, though, to see the article “High and dry” (March 2021) close with a warning that “people need to ditch way more lawns.” To […]

Kudos on Nick Bowlin’s well-written, level-headed, even-handed article (“Second Citizens,” January 2021). As a Colorado native who has lived in the Gunnison Valley for over 27 years, I have paid close attention to the delicate balance between classes, lifestyles and valued labor input, and the efforts to keep this valley viable economically while also welcoming both […]

The January issue caught my attention, touching on issues with historical and current causes in my areas of interest. The best was the essay by Kimberly Myra Mitchell (“Through wildland firefighting, finding a space to heal”).  I won’t try to put into words the emotions I felt as I finished reading it! I cried. Tommy […]

I am writing to thank you for Eric Siegel’s piece about the Tenacious Unicorn transgender alpaca farm. As an East Coast city-dweller, I am surely not the target audience, but it definitely struck close to home. I grew up in a small town in the country but left because I couldn’t see a future there as […]

I’m a recent subscriber, and while I love the magazine generally, I have to express special admiration for Eric Siegel and Luna Anna Archey’s “Queers, alpacas and guns.” It often seems there is a consensus that certain communities can only find homes in either our urban or our rural spaces, but not both. This has never actually been true, and articles […]

The problems revealed in your interview with Jackie Fielder (“Is it time to decolonize the housing market?” February 2021) are as real as they have been for the history of our nation. The pandemic and the renter problems it has caused and magnified are huge and absolutely impossible to ignore. If we don’t answer the challenge and […]

Jessica Kutz’s article about coal on the Diné and Hopi lands was both heartbreaking and uplifting (“Life After Coal,” February 2021).  What a perfect place, generally and geographically, for the new Biden administration to walk its talk about supporting Indigenous nations while addressing climate change by fully enabling, with federal funds, the transition to carbon-neutral […]

Just finished “Queers, alpacas, guns” (February 2021). It is why I love HCN. Great example of how sometimes you just have to show up and find what is out there — how people learn to coexist where least expected. Keep up the good work. Patricia WestHarrisburg, Pennsylvania This article appeared in the print edition of the […]

Thank you for High Country News in general and especially your recent article on the winds of change (“Pro-Trump riots won’t stop the winds of political change blowing in the West,” 1/11/21, web-only). As an Idaho Democrat, it is very helpful to hear this right now. I hope some of those winds blow this way, […]

Thank you for the deeply reported article by Nick Bowlin. The Gunnison Valley may be the sharpest illustration of the changes in the mountain West that were worsened by COVID-19. Clearly, it was a mistake, in an effort to prevent the spread of the virus, to try to ban “outsiders” from using their second homes in Gunnison […]

Such a rich January edition deserves praise. Kudos to the “Rebel Constables,” each one of them, and to Gabriel Schivone for excellent coverage. It did me such good to read this story. And I was on the edge of my chair waiting for election results, fuming over the attempted big-money takeover of the Gunnison County […]

I watched the Salton Sea go from a fun place to boat and fish to a wasteland of dead fish and dreams. The article (“Sea change,” January 2021) is a rerun of a rerun of a rerun about broken promises from a dysfunctional state government. California is never going to spend mega-millions on the Salton […]

Thank you for the excellent January 2021 issue. Every article was pertinent to one or another of the pressing problems here in the West. I especially liked the article and photos by Nick Bowlin and Luna Anna Archey in your feature story, “Second Citizens.” It’s very evident that we need to find a way to […]

Nick Bowlin’s piece “Second Citizens” was an absolute gem. The reporting and emotion invoked were beautiful, and I want to thank Bowlin from my heart for stirring it up. As someone who lived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for five years (and moved around a lot) I understand the dynamic intricacies of a seasonal town and […]

I started a two-year subscription in response to the sterling reporting you provide. I’ve sporadically read articles from HCN for many years, but the tipping point to convert me to a subscriber came after reading Nick Bowlin’s piece on the political efforts of second-home owners in Crested Butte against COVID restrictions. While I have my own point […]

My sincere and respectful congratulations for the fine article on the Gunnison election. As an aged near-native of the area who still carefully reads the Gunnison Country Times, I can verify your descriptions and revelations, and appreciate your deft manner of educating us all on the local background issues. I found your descriptions to be fair and […]

This is a serious infrastructure situation across much of the country, not just here in the rural West (“When you can’t drink the water,” December 2020). Obviously, Flint, Michigan, is the poster child for this, but it wouldn’t surprise me if 50 million Americans have compromised drinking water. Of the many things that this country […]

Good article on rural water problems. The agencies involved, and anyone who does R&D in water, are myopically focused on central grid/pipeline systems — the bread and butter of the engineering firms/banks that finance municipal bonds, and the municipalities that charge for your water bill. Obviously, a point of use or distributed solution is the […]