Pumping up fear along the Colorado River
Some Colorado River tribulations today remind me of a folk story: A young man went to visit his fiancé and…
Photograph by JC Peacock, courtesy of Unsplash
MoreSome Western states join the rush to suppress voting
Colorado’s elections are a bipartisan success story, so when Major League baseball responded to Georgia’s new voting restrictions by moving the…
Image by Unseen Histories, courtesy of Unsplash
MoreWater can be wrung out too much
“But when Western cities grow, they look everywhere for more water, with little regard for the rivers they drain. “
Santa Fe River below Santa Fe Municipal Water Treatment Plant. Photograph courtesy of Allen Best.
MoreUrban-rural divide is alive and well
“The annual Western Stock Show puts cowboy hats in high-end restaurants and strip joints alike.”
Photograph by Allen Best, outside of Akron, CO
MoreAn isolated area gets the vaccine job done
“The two small counties, including the indigenous community of the Southern Ute Nation, were ready when 4,000 of those doses—10% of the state’s total—arrived.”
Photograph by Fadil Fauzi, courtesy of Unsplash
MoreDying for powder
“I don’t know anyone who’s stood at the top of a slope and thought, ‘Well, this could kill me, but it’s going to be epic powder skiing!’”
Photograph by Jan Kronies, courtesy of Unsplash
MoreWe can act now to fight wildfires
“In 2020, the highest we got to anywhere, was a D2 — Severe Drought. Now we are looking at D3 — D4 — Extreme and Exceptional Drought across much of the West and almost all of the Southwest.”
Cameron Peak Fire, Near Red Feather Lakes, Arapahoe and Roosevelt National Forest, Colorado – 2020 Image courtesy of Harrison Raine
MoreAn Idaho congressman aims to dump dams
Rep. Mike Simpson is a conservative Republican from Idaho whose concept of wildness in the 1990s was going into the…
Photograph courtesy of Rocky Barker
MorePumping iron became my armor
“Within two months I was getting muscles. I have never been harassed since.”
Photograph of Crista Worth in competition shape, courtesy of Crista Worthy
MoreSometimes, poison is the only thing that works
The ashy storm-petrel, threatened by mice on the Farallon Islands.
Photograph courtesy of Ted Williams
MoreThe West badly needs a restoration economy
“Restoration work is not fixing beautiful machinery … It is accepting an abandoned responsibility,”
Photograph courtesy of Allan Nash, open pit coal mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin
MoreBillionaire mine owner leaves a tiny town in the lurch
“..a visitor to the town notices abandoned cars parked willy-nilly and piles of junk that look as old as the town itself. “
Photograph Courtesy of Somerset Water District website
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