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The Colorado River comes alive even as it ebbs

By Char Miller

The Colorado River is revealing its secrets. For decades a World War II landing craft lay submerged 200 feet beneath…

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Hard choices for the Colorado River

By Quinn Harper Mark Squillace

The seven Colorado River states – Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming – face a daunting mid-August…

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Will salmon finally win this year?

By Rocky Barker

For the last 35 years I’ve been covering what we call the “salmon wars” in the Pacific Northwest, writing so…

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Ditches are a vanishing paradise

By Dave Marston

Annette Choszczyk lives in rural western Colorado these days, but when she was a kid, the Highline Canal in Denver…

Photo of North Fork Valley, Co, courtesy of Kenita Burns Moore

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The “Keystone Pipeline” won’t make gas any cheaper 

By Ted Williams

”A report that the Biden administration is weighing greater imports of Canadian oil is putting a renewed focus on the…

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Tips for a new code of the West

By Dave Marston

It’s not always easy living in the rural West, with customs so entrenched that everybody takes them for granted. What…

Image credit: Pat Hunter

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Freedom in the West, but not for women

By Rebecca Johnson

I moved to Wyoming a few years ago for its outdoor recreation, but I also liked the state’s history of…

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How do you you-know-what in the woods

By Molly Absolon

Poop talk makes everybody fidget and giggle uncomfortably. We like our poop to disappear. We want shiny white porcelain toilets…

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We need every tool to fight today’s fires

By Stephen Pyne

We know now that the largest recorded fire in New Mexico history was started by an escaped “prescribed burn,” or…

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The Colorado River Compact Hasn’t Aged Well

By George Sibley

The Colorado River Compact turns 100 this year, but any celebration is damped down by the drying-up of the big…

The public launch ramp at Antelope Point, late March, 2021

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I’m a journalist and an optimist

By Larry Ryckman

Journalism has always been a tough way to make a living. It’s generally offered low wages, the constant threat of…

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Bison — back where they belong

By Ben Long

Early in the Covid-19 epidemic, I visited the Bison Range on the Flathead Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana. But the…

Bison by the Midway Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park

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What others are saying See More

The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction, Colorado places a premium on content that examines management of public lands and natural resources. We’re big fans of Writers on the Range. The contributors come from all walks of life, but their column always hit home with our readers, for whom access to public lands is an important part of the lifestyle in western Colorado. Cutbacks to the newsroom have seriously hampered our coverage of the environment. Most often these stories are best told by people who have first-hand experience dealing with a particular challenges — from loving favorite trails to death to rebuilding coal communities or threats to the sagebrush sea. Writers on the Range consistently identifies problems and solutions in a thorough and engaging way. We need more of this kind of advocacy journalism on our opinion pages because it fosters understanding and dialogue about the unique living conditions in the American West.

Andy Smith, Opinion Page Editor
Grand Junction Sentinel, Grand Junction, CO

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