The Magazine

The reclamation of Montana’s hardrock mines will cost billions, and is complicated by the fact that no one really knows how to do it, or who should foot the bill.

Special issue on hardrock mining: Montana has long had a love-hate relationship with hardrock mining, and the prospect of new massive gold mines is bringing all the problems to a boil.

California’s Mono Lake has been saved from Los Angeles’ thirst, but a new local battle is brewing over the water in the lake’s streams, and the question of how far to take restoration of the area.

Oregon’s Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge seems to be recovering now that cattle have been banned from it – but despite the lush grasses, the antelope are still in decline.

The proposal to drain Lake Powell is exhilarating because of the debate it will inspire: A careful study of the history of the Colorado River Basin and Glen Canyon Dam reveals that the hated dam may have had some good consequences, while those who remember and still mourn for drowned Glen Canyon find new allies in the fight to destroy the dam and restore the canyon.

California rice farmers decide to destroy salmon-blocking dams in their Sacramento Valley irrigation district.

The federal government’s new Recreational Fee Demonstration Program – which requires recreationists to “pay to play” in national parks, forests, BLM and Fish and Wildlife areas nationwide – receives both condemnation and kudos in its early trials.

The Quincy Library Group’s controversial forest plan comes out of a long struggle for consensus, and many environmentalists worry that the plan and its passage into law will set a dangerous precedent.

As Yellowstone National Park celebrates its 125th birthday, it continues to struggle with the surrounding states over wildlife management and other questions, including whether “natural regulation” is letting the park’s elk herds overgraze their ranges.

Two whistleblowers – safety auditor Casey Ruud and geophysicist John Brodeur – find that radioactive waste from some of the biggest, leaking storage tanks has already reached groundwater and is heading toward the Columbia River.

A close look at the history of the West reveals that human beings have meddled with and sometimes changed the landscape for as long as they have lived on the continent.

Who wins and who loses when Uncle Sam cuts deals with landowners to protect endangered species with Habitat Conservation Plans — the latest attempt to balance private-property rights with the protection of endangered species?

The state of Wyoming remains stuck in the Old West and trapped by its myths and boom-and-bust cycles, while outside its boundaries the New West comes to life.

The copper mining company Summo USA’s plans to mine in northern New Mexico and Lisbon Valley, Utah, lead a reporter to follow what happens when local communities resist – and don’t resist – a hardrock mining project.

Costilla County, Colorado’s attempts to rein in logging and gain access to the Taylor Ranch their Hispanic forebears used as a commons are frustrated by a wave of mostly Anglo newcomers who want no part of any planning regulations.

The growing desire of Native Americans to protect their sacred sites in the West leads to sometimes acrimonious debate over public access, the First Amendment and the definition of sacred places.

Is the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency going to clean up beleaguered Lake Tahoe and its surroundings – or simply drive a wedge between the elite and the working class in the community?

A new breed of green Evangelical Christians seeks to spread the good news of Bible-based environmentalism to their conservative fellow Christians.

As the small, conservative towns bordering Utah’s new Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument begin to adapt to the monument they never wanted, a new vision for what gateway communities and preserved areas might be begins to slowly emerge.

A Montana ski resort originally created by newsman Chet Huntley and intended to be a model of free-market, unconstrained development, is today a morass of lawsuits, environmental degradation and inefficiency.