New nukes — as well as old nuclear waste — may soon be headed West: Tucked inside the 2004 Water and Energy Appropriations Bill was $11 million for the Modern Pit Facility, a factory to build plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs (HCN, 9/1/03: Courting the Bomb). Now, it’s up to the Energy Department to decide […]
New Mexico
Posted inNovember 24, 2003: New Mexico goes head-to-head with a nuclear juggernaut
Moving the cheese to New Mexico
Neighbors and local governments are increasingly fed up with the stinky, unhealthy conditions of the huge dairy operations on the Snake River Plain. One of the world’s largest cheesemakers, Ireland’s Glanbia Inc., recently wanted to expand its operations near Twin Falls, but local opposition — in the form of heated public meetings and two counties’ […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 2003: Harvesting Poison
City at the end of its rope
Anyone who has lived in Albuquerque, and sworn a curse upon the city and all its planners, visitors and inhabitants while broiling in traffic, and then eaten chile rellenos at sunset while watching the Sandia Mountains turn pink, knows that love and hate, beauty and grit, stand shoulder to shoulder in this desert city. Longtime […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2003: Pipe Dreams
Red Earth: desert poems resurrected
I’ve seen her pass with eyes upon the road — An old bent woman in a bronze black shawl, With skin as dried and wrinkled as a mummy’s, As brown as a cigar-box, and her voice Like the low vibrant strings of a guitar. And I have fancied from the girls about What she was […]