Living large

A private ski area under development in Utah, which will be for the exclusive use of the residents of an exclusive resort community outside Ogden, highlights troubling impacts the ultrarich are having on the West's scenic destinations.

“Landownership change and concentration" are making "vast private estates a defining feature" of the Greater Yellowstone and grassland prairie landscapes valued for conservation, according to a 2022 study co-authored by Montana State University associate professor Julia Haggerty. As a result, past concerns about the fragmentation of these valuable landscapes by development is being replaced by "a pattern where individuals can gain profound influence over biodiversity and rural economic futures.”

Teton County's newest residents have a mean income of $661,000, while its out-migrants had a mean income of $100,181 — a 660 percent difference. This gap leads not just Wyoming, but the nation.

As wildfire risk rises in the West, wildland firefighters and officials are keeping a closer eye on the high mountains – regions once considered too wet to burn.

A philanthropy-funded program to provide free mental health support for fire survivors has served hundreds of people but has bumped up against a provider shortage. “We are struggling.”

Colorado Marshall fire survivors with homes still standing continue to face unique hurdles more than a year later.

More training and new approaches are needed to fight fires in wildland urban interfaces, fire experts said Wednesday in Colorado Springs.

This high-profile resort community is at “very high risk to wildfire” and an emblem for the dangers of building in the wildland-urban interface.

In this video produced by Headwaters Economics, homeowner Brodey Simkins describes the tragedy of losing his home to the 2020 Bridger Foothills Fire in Southwestern Montana, and his commitment to rebuilding with wildfire in mind.

The GAO report is clear: Forest Service officials need to figure out how to better learn from past wildfire issues and mistakes.

Eddy County was given an “F” grade for its air quality and ranked as one of the most polluted counties in the U.S. when it comes to ground-level ozone tied to fossil fuel development in the area, according to a American Lung Association report.

Denver, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs climb in American Lung Association’s rankings of most polluted cities.

Another Colorado judge has admonished state health officials for repeatedly delaying decisions on air pollution permits for oil and gas operators, even as the backlog of overdue permits continues to grow.

The air quality improvement plans target the state’s oil and gas industry, which was responsible last year for almost half of the emissions that cause ozone pollution in Colorado.

Tracy Stone-Manning, the director of the Bureau of Land Management, loves the travel that her work requires and above all, loves working hard. She says the challenges in front of her and her 10,000 BLM colleagues are met best through hard work.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle questioned Haaland on the controversial approval of the Willow oil and gas project in Alaska, capping orphan wells, offshore wind and a proposed regulation that has been described as a “seismic shift” in the department’s approach to conservation and could have repercussions for clean energy.

Curtis said the federal government needs to “step up” when it takes land stewardship away from the state.

Today, the parks struggle under an intractable tension. The number of visitors at once exceeds what the landscape can withstand and compromises the enjoyment of the visitors themselves.

Both Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly and Grand Teton National Park Superintendent Chip Jenkins recently said parkwide shuttle systems don’t make sense for those two national parks. But we believe a shuttle system could help.

The plant stopped burning coal in the summer of 2021 as part of an effort to move toward using cleaner sources of electricity.

It signals an attempt to bring the commission — and the industry it regulates — into the state's larger efforts to combat climate change and provide new options for energy storage.

Missoula’s new solar array includes 950 panels that help power the city’s wastewater treatment plant, which diverts harmful substances from flowing into the Clark Fork River.

The decision upheld an earlier district court loss for a pair of lawsuits representing almost 50 local landowners opposed to the roughly 500-megawatt Rail Tie Wind Project.

Gold, copper, lithium and myriad other minerals could lay deep underground in the deserts of southern New Mexico, but could be found by scientists taking to the sky. The USGS announced beginning in April it would search for evidence of 23 minerals via aircraft over the Deming and Lordsburg areas in New Mexico’s southwest bootheel region.

Heat waves, extreme weather and drought spiked Rocky Mountain Power’s fuel costs and wholesale power purchase prices in 2022, prompting it to request a rate increase of $50.3 million for its Wyoming customers, the company said.

Elk Refuge officials are burning carcasses to keep chronic wasting disease at bay.

Scientific investigation at Wyoming’s Little Mountain area puts solid data to a previously just suspected correlation: the closer deer live to elk, the skinnier they get.

As a result of severe winter impacts, Wyoming Game and Fish wildlife managers recommended a decrease of 10,290 pronghorn licenses and 4,410 mule deer licenses at the recent Wyoming Game and Fish Commission meeting.

Several wolves that spent much of their lives in Banff National Park have been trapped and killed on provincial lands just outside the park boundary, including a female wolf from the Bow Valley fitted with a tracking collar.

The Great Salt Lake Collaborative has created an interactive website to help Utahns understand the critical role the Great Salt Lake and its wetlands play in the ecosystem that is crucial to 10 million birds.

The 2022 return of steelhead surprised fisheries managers. But the fish are expected to tank again this year and fisheries managers are expecting one of the lowest returns, if not the lowest, on record.

Controversy about mechanical equipment intended to help grayling in a wilderness area has continued, boosted by revelations that a federal wildlife agency already added such equipment for a pilot project.

I’ve been reading “The Longest Silence” by Tom McGuane for six years, which may not sound like a ringing endorsement, but allow me to explain.

Utah’s wetlands are crucial in times of drought and times of flooding, but they haven’t always received the attention they deserve.

Utah braces for potential landslides this spring as its record-setting snowpacks melt and saturate soils near populated areas along the Wasatch Front.

National environmental nonprofit American Rivers has included an iconic western Montana river in its 2023 list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers, citing its proximity to the site of a former 1,000-acre pulp mill still rife with contaminants.

While pollution-induced algal blooms threaten the river, environmental groups say the designation will aid an eventual cleanup.

Amid two decades of drought, cloud seeding — using airplanes or ground equipment to waft rain-and-snow-making particles into clouds — is on the rise in the Rockies.

In the Southwest, tribal health organizations are finding ways to counter the factors – including the lack of access to clean drinking water – that contribute to high rates of childhood obesity in Native communities.

What exactly is needed, according to Hansen? A fee and dividend system in which the price of fossil fuel is gradually raised to reflect carbon emissions, and those dividends from the revenue generated get returned to people — not the government.

Gale Norton, former Secretary of the Interior, encourages the U.S. Supreme Court to grant review of Suncor Energy v. Boulder County that appeals a Tenth Circuit decision sending three Colorado climate cases back to state court.

On day two of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the climate crisis that Indigenous peoples are overwhelmingly expected to bear was highlighted.

In many Western states, 19th-century laws and deregulation allow chemical-laden trains to roll in obscurity — leaving hazmat teams guessing.

Can burning wood waste and other plant material into "biochar" help save the planet? These people think so.

Last March was the second windiest in San Acacio, but Colorado's wind trends are hard to track due to limited data, climatologist says.

Chairlift maker Leitner-Poma of America has plans to build its biggest U.S. factory in Tooele.

Along the West Coast, producers face what many call the failed economics of legal pot. There is vast supply, thanks to great growing conditions and a wealth of expertise, but any surplus remains trapped within each state’s borders due to the federal ban on marijuana. Prices have plunged and producers have struggled.