The Magazine

Industry says the West’s thick, low-sulfur coal seams are they key to America’s abundant energy, while conservationists push for more equitable distribution of mining throughout the country. In this issue, HCN presents three different views on the options.

Several Western governors convened recently to hammer out general policies on energy issues for the region, striking a tone of “states’ rights” in relation to the national government.

Wheatland, Wyoming, has so far dodged the energy boom, but it may be the future home of the Missouri Basin Power Project, a 1,500 megawatt coal-fired power plant.

Most people believe wilderness should be left alone. But as more and more people use it, active management becomes necessary.

Can you imagine a U.S. energy future which doesn’t require immediate and massive commitments to western coal and oil shale development, nuclear power, offshore oil or foreign imports?

Although Wyoming’s Fontenelle Reservoir was built under pretense of providing water mostly for irrigation, it is useless for agriculture — and may have been intended all along to serve industry.

Debate follows the decision to transfer three wildlife ranges — the Kofa Game Range in Arizona, the Charles Sheldon Antelope Range in Nevada, and the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Range in Montana — to sole management by the Bureau of Land Management, after years of dual management with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Montana Wilderness Association proposes an alternative to Ski Yellowstone, a ski area and real estate development that would bring clearcut ski runs and hundreds of condos to the Hebgen Lake area near Yellowstone National Park.

The Four Corners power plant is a monument of the Navajo Nation’s collision of cultures: the traditional ways that respect the land and the intruding pressure of technology and growth.

During the past 20 years federal incompetence has allowed billions of tons of public coal to fall into the hands of the corporate giants of the energy industry.

To understand newly appointed Secretary of the Interior Stan Hathaway, one must understand the history of Wyoming.

Traditionally, cities on Colorado’s Front Range have turned to the state’s western slope when local water supplies were exhausted. But with strong environmentalist protest to trans-mountain diversion schemes, thirsty growth centers are looking elsewhere — to agricultural water.

The theme of this year’s National Wildlife Week is “We Care About Animal Habitat,” and one of the animals that has had the greatest assaults on its habitat is the American peregrine falcon.

In Idaho Power’s brochure, a confident and ever-smiling Reddy Kilowatt perches on an electrostatic precipitator, his three-fingered hand raised toward a drawing of the Jim Bridger power plant’s smokestacks — “99 plus % clean.”

A look inside the world of Wyoming lobbyists, who usually don’t fit the stereotypes attributed to them.

The state of Colorado has expressed doubt about whether Beaver Creek can be developed into a Vail-like ski resort without compromising environmental imperatives and local human needs.

Once upon a time there were on the Kingdom of Earth two major principalities — Ruritania and Metropolitania. They were linked together by the Royal Road of Progress and a secret underground passageway called Deals.

Nuclear waste disposal used to be a quiet topic of study. But now that hazardous radioactive leftovers are scheduled to move into Nevada, Idaho, or Washington, the topic is making headlines.

Pacific Power & Light and Idaho Power, the two utilities that are constructing the Jim Bridger Power Plant near Rock Springs, Wyoming, have created unexpected impacts related to the plant’s siting and emissions.

The cattleman now finds himself confronted by an array of problems — inflation, sluggish markets, water conflicts — not seen since the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s.