Rural Colorado county gets ready for wildfire
When La Plata County in southwestern Colorado needed a director of emergency management in 2021, they found a winner in…
Shawna Legarza Kennebec Trail Race 2024
MoreTrump’s policies put us in economic danger
Donald Trump’s platform was clear when he was running for president. He promised to make bold improvements—quickly raising revenue by…
MoreLos Angeles is a wake-up call for the West—especially Durango
After fierce winds whipped fire out of brush-covered hills on January 7, entire Los Angeles neighborhoods burned down. Within a…
MoreLet’s scrap the stigma of mental illness
Even though one in five Americans is estimated to suffer from mental health illness, talk about mental health in the…
MoreThe Trump triumph portends an economic fallout
As I watched Donald Trump arrive at an astounding victory election night, I was struck by his strong turnout in…
MoreAcidic mine drainage haunts Western rivers
It was the summer of 2015 when the Animas River in southern Colorado turned such a garish orange-gold that it…
Reid Christopher in font of textile bags, mining ruins in background, Gladstone Treatment Plant, San Miguel County, CO. Dave Marston photojpg
MoreVolunteers power the Colorado Trail
The Colorado Trail, an iconic 567-mile high-elevation trail that crosses the Rockies, owes its existence largely to Gudy Gaskill, a…
Below The Three Apostles, Colorado Trail Jeff Miller and Dave Marston, Matt Smith Photo
MoreIt’s a perfect storm for fire insurance
Westerners have begun looking at their homes differently these days. Are those trees too close? Should I move all that…
House in Douglas County, CO, courtesy Lena Deravianko, Unsplash
MoreBuilding a huge park is anything but easy
Marc Katz is a retired entrepreneur who lives part-time in Durango, Colorado, a town of 19,000 people who all seem…
MoreA candy bar fueled the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic
If you don’t know much about the Iron Horse bike race that begins in the town of Durango in southwestern…
MoreGlen Canyon Dam has created a world of mud
When the San Juan River flows out of the San Juan Mountains in Southwestern Colorado, it contributes 15% of Lake…
Calving sediment below Clay Hills, UT San Juan River, courtesy Chad Niehaus
MoreEnergy guru says energy gap can be bridged
The experts tell us an energy gap looms. Fossil fuels are phasing out, and solar and wind power can’t produce…
MoreCreative builders get rural housing done
Here’s a statistic to be unhappy about: Colorado and Utah host the fifth and sixth most expensive housing markets in…
Community Rebuilds houses in Moab UT, courtesy Emily Niehaus
MoreGoats can be a forest’s best friend
Goats are particularly good at one thing: Eating. Unlike a horse or cow that leaves noxious weeds behind, goats eat…
Jonathan Bartley and Adrian Lacasse
MoreA dogged reporter covers our roiling world
Usually seen with a camera slung around his neck, Allen Best edits a one-man online journalism shop he calls Big…
Allen Best at work
MoreRushing water closes a highway in Western Colorado
The small towns of Paonia and Hotchkiss in western Colorado are seeing fewer tourists this spring. Exceptionally high runoff blew…
Bear Creek digs a big ditch across Highway 133, Patti Kaech photo, May 15
MoreFarmington, a city in need of a jolt
The good news these days about Farmington, New Mexico, is that the air looks clear. That’s a huge change. For…
Blue skies over the closed San Juan Generating Station, Mike Eisenfeld photo
MoreA Colorado reservoir gets ready for an epic snowmelt
Reservoir manager Ken Beck says wryly that he has lots of water coming his way, “and I need a hole…
Ken Beck at the Pine River Irrigation headquarters
MoreColorado is conflicted about cutting its water use
In Colorado, farmers must enroll in a four-state program by March 1, if they want to get paid for fallowing…
Tom Kay in front of his John Deere tractor, image: Dave Marston
MoreAtmospheric rivers endanger the West
Moab, Utah, gets just eight inches of rain per year, yet rainwater flooded John Weisheit’s basement last summer. Extremes are…
Glen Canyon Dam under construction 1960-63, courtesy USBR
MoreWhat also counts is where the snow falls
This week Writers on the Range explores the possibility of dangerous flooding in the Colorado River Basin. But there’s something…
A girl and her dog sledding at Durango’s off-leash dog park Jan. 20, photo courtesy Dave Marston
MoreThe “energy gap” nobody wants to tussle with
Many Western states have declared they will achieve all-renewable electrical goals in just two decades. Call me naïve, but haven’t…
Clouds over a windmill farm near Oakley, Kansas
MorePublic land — a true blessing
At every Thanksgiving dinner, my family asks everyone around the table to say what they’re grateful for. It puts new…
Green River from White-Rim in Canyonlands National Park near Moab UT Oct.-2022 credit Dave-Marston
MoreWhen no home is affordable, where do you live?
It’s a common story: Candace McNatt of Durango, in southern Colorado, kept losing bidding wars to buy a house. She…
Candace McNatt with her dog at Oasis Park in Durango Co. The tiny home part of the park is called, “tiny town”
MoreBusiness as usual for the Colorado River
It seemed inevitable that the dwindling Colorado River would be divvied up by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. On June…
Winterhaven, CA, Imperial Dam, where 90% of the Colorado River is desilted and sent to numerous irrigation districts in CA and AZ. Courtesy of Bureau of Reclamation
MoreDitches are a vanishing paradise
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
MoreTips for a new code of the West
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
MoreWant to farm? Get a cash register
In 1991, when Lee Bradley started farming near Paonia in the North Fork Valley of Colorado, he was hired to…
Image credit: P.j. Briscoe
MoreA tale of two western counties
“Delta County has a long history of turning away stuff that ends up in Montrose County,” says Delta County Commissioner Don Suppes.
May 26, 2021 – Byron Kominek, owner of Jack’s Solar Garden, tills the soil at the farm in Longmont, Colo. Jack’s Solar Garden is a 1.2-MW, five-acre community solar farm and is the largest agrivoltaic research project in the U.S. The solar project was designed and built by Namasté Solar. (Photo by Werner Slocum / NREL)
MoreImagine a great river, flowing free
Some environmental groups and water honchos have sponsored a “Rewilding of Glen Canyon” contest, with the winner getting $4,000 “and…
MoreWind-driven fire ran until gusts died
The Marshall Fire that demolished more than 1,000 homes along the front range of Colorado two weeks ago was not…
Nasa recorded image of MM117 fire via Wildfire Today
MoreThis rancher has radical ideas about water
If Jim Howell, a fourth-generation rancher in Western Colorado, has a guru, he’s Allan Savory, the champion of intensive cattle…
MoreHow I learned to love maggots
If you’re one of those people who composts everything you can think of because you want to build up your…
Black Soldier Flies in author, David Marston’s hand
MoreLooking back to when water was plentiful
During his 50 years in rural western Colorado, Jamie Jacobson has seen a lot of flooding. While caretaking a farm…
MoreCall it Bindweed or thistle – Writers on the Range just won’t die
It sprouted again during a fall hike in 2019. Betsy, Steve Mandell, his wife, Terri, and I, agreed that Writers on the Range deserved to live again.
Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash
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
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
MoreWho Calls the Shots on the Colorado River?
Once you pay for fallowed fields, you’ll end up with landowners who are investors first, like Water Asset Management.
Photograph by Jon Flobrant, courtesy of Unsplash
MoreA Move Toward Water Speculation
“Just talking about demand management has already attracted deep-pocketed investors..”
Photo by RedCharlie, Courtesy of Unsplash
MoreA Clear Warning About the Colorado River
For the West this summer, the news about water was grim. In some parts of California, it didn’t rain for…
Photograph by Ken Cheung, Courtesy of Unsplash
MoreIf the Water Goes, the Desert Moves in
“Without water, you’ve got nothing around here.”
Photograph by David Marston
MoreALMOST 70 WHEN THE VIRUS ENDED HIS JOB
Brezonick knows that the huge furnaces that burn coal are closing fast. “I don’t think coal will recover and society has turned against it,”
Photograph by Matt Brezonick
MoreA DEPRESSED TOWN FIGHTS BACK
This is a place that knows the pain of an industry cutting back.
Photograph by Jeffrey Beall, Flickr
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