An excerpt from Rebecca Clarren’s new novel explores the effects of fossil fuel development on a Western ranch.
Rebecca Clarren
Posted inNovember 10, 2014: Fallout
Timberland herbicide spraying sickens a community
Companies deposit thousands of pounds of herbicides each year on Oregon forests.
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Farming’s Toxic Legacy
Banned ag chemicals linger in neighborhoods that swallowed up former farms and orchards
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Backyard poisons?
This is a sidebar to the feature story, Pesticides from Old Farmland Leave Toxic Legacy. Amanda Ryder and her family live two blocks from Robertson Elementary, one of many Yakima schools that required cleanup due to the high levels of lead and arsenic in its soil. The orchard that contaminated the school’s playground once extended […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
How to Play Safely in the Soil
A few suggestions to dramatically reduce exposure to possible contaminants — without breaking the bank
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
Dairy injuries and deaths 2003-2009
At least 18 people died working in Western dairies between 2003 and 2009; many more were injured. This list of deaths and injuries, compiled from state and federal safety agency reports, is certainly incomplete, thanks to loopholes and differences in state and federal reporting requirements as well as underreporting by workers. When possible, supplementary information […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2009: The dark side of dairies
The dark side of dairies
A broken system leaves immigrant workers invisible — and in danger.
Posted inMay 18, 2009: The Rise of the Minotaur
Paddling toward shore
Northwestern tribe takes a new/old approach to stemming the Native health care crisis
Posted inWotr
Female farmworkers are the most vulnerable
Under a scorching heat, a group of farmworkers harvests melons from a vast field near Huron, Calif. There is only one woman among the dozen or so workers; she leans into the task, her arms outstretched, her body itself a tool. The bandana around her face and her baggy long-sleeved T-shirt offer a thin protection […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2008: A fractured party
‘Si, se puede’
Activist continues to inspire after 50 years
Posted inArticles
Guest workers: Laborers or commodity?
Mexican workers are people with “a good old-fashioned work ethic” who are “very friendly and easy to work with,” says www.mexican-workers.com. Labormex.com, which guarantees the lowest prices around for Mexican workers, boasts that hiring them is “the most cost effective way of handling all your agricultural labor requirements.” Some companies, however, temper their advertising copy […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Plowing under the fields of shame
Under a brain-scorching heat, a group of farmworkers harvests melons from a vast field near Huron, Calif. There is only one woman among the dozen or so workers; she leans into the task, her arms outstretched, her body itself a tool. The bandana around her face and her baggy long-sleeved T-shirt offer a thin protection […]
Posted inWotr
Big stakes surround South Dakota’s abortion ban
On the outskirts of rural Menno, S.D., past acres of sunflowers, there’s a wooden sign nailed to a post. It reads: “Abortion, America’s #1 Killer.” Similar signs dot roads throughout this conservative state, which is populated by 775,000 people and where just one clinic, based in Sioux Falls, performs about 800 abortions a year. Depending […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Zine Roundup: Sweet simplicity
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Undaunted muckraker,” in a special issue about community media in the West. Dan Price’s media empire is centered in a kind of hobbit hole in a meadow in Joseph, Ore., where his 2003 Toshiba photocopier prints 200 copies every two months of […]
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Zine Roundup: Gone fishing
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Undaunted muckraker,” in a special issue about community media in the West. Named for the brown rubber boots with hefty soles popular among fishermen, the zine Xtra Tuf is a richly tinted window into the fishing industry’s turbulent culture. Its creator, Moe […]
Posted inWotr
Health is a casualty on the fast track to gas drilling
The 20 miles of interstate highway between the small towns of Silt and Parachute in western Colorado slice through a landscape of sagebrush and mesas. There are few exits through this section of Garfield County, where the local population of deer and elk rivals the number of ranchers, retirees and others who live here. Susan […]
Posted inWotr
A silent victim of illegal immigration is our public lands
Just three miles north of Arizona’s border with Mexico, the Coronado National Forest is littered with the leavings of people on the run: empty plastic water bottles, opened tuna fish cans, sweatshirts, jars of foot powder. Near a scattered pack of playing cards, some turquoise underwear lies in an undignified tangle. A pair of small […]
Posted inWotr
Someday, chickens will come home to roost
From the air, part of New Mexico’s Carson National Forest looks like a spider web that’s been carved into the landscape. Here on the 33,000-acre Jicarilla District, more than 700 gas wells and a maze of over 400 miles of associated roads crisscross the land. While companies have been leasing this New Mexico forest for […]