My Page: David Frey
FORBES 400
Who’s the Richest in the West?
If Wyoming’s three richest families decided to boost the economy by giving all their money to fellow Cowboy State residents, each resident of Wyoming would walk away with $44,493.
That gives Wyoming the biggest chunk of billionaire dollars per capita in the country, according to Forbes magazine’s latest list of 400 wealthiest people in America.
It helps that Wyoming’s sparse population makes the state better known for wide-open spaces than urban squalor. It also helps that Wyoming is home to the richest family in the West.
[more]MYSTERIOUS DEATH
Suspicion Surrounds Colorado Wolf Death
A wolf that wandered from Montana and died in Colorado earlier this year met its end on a hillside about 24 miles north of Rifle, according to government documents obtained by an environmental organization.
Federal wildlife law enforcement officers continue to investigate the death of a Montana wolf that wandered from Montana and died in Colorado, nearly after a year after the wolf’s carcass was collected, raising speculation that the wolf was killed by a human.
“It’s a good question, but I’m not going to answer it,” says George Morrison, Colorado senior wildlife agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
[more]COME TOGETHER
National Parks Preserve Common Ground in a Divisive Time
There I was, standing on the National Mall, when I found myself accidentally surrounded by the throng of protesters gathered for the Taxpayers March on Washington.
Around me were signs with President Obama painted up in white face like the Joker. There were signs questioning his birth certificate. There were lots of American flags and more than a few “Don’t tread on me” banners.
But what, exactly, were they protesting? Health care reform? Taxes? One thing was for sure. They had it out for all things public.
How lucky for them, I thought, that they had the manicured lawn of the National Mall to stand on while they protested America’s slide into the slavering jaws of socialism. The National Mall is a national park, one of 391 of them from Arcadia to Zion. Thank God for commie green space.
[more]WORLD WANDERER
Will the Real Tim Cahill Please Stand Up?
OK, so this guy walks into a bar in small-town New Mexico. He sits at the counter, turns to the guy beside him and says something like, “Hi, I’m Tim Cahill, famous adventure writer.”
Their conversation changes the other guy’s life. He’s so moved, he zaps Cahill an email thanking him for inspiring him to follow his dream.
That’s very nice, Cahill shoots back, only I’ve never been to that bar, or that town, and I’ve never met you. The punch line? Tim Cahill is so cool, other people walk around pretending to be him.“Some guy is getting laid using my name,” Cahill laughs. “I’m not even getting laid using my name.”
Cahill has the job the rest of us dream about. As a travel writer, he has bounded across the planet in high-adrenaline pursuits. His writing is so funny it’s easy to forget how insightful it is, but by the end of his essays, readers find themselves transported not just across the globe, but into a whole new way of thinking about the world around them.
[more]‘EXTINCTION WHILE WE WATCH’
‘Grizzly Wars’ Explores Uphill Fight to Save a Species
Grizzlies are one of the most iconic of the endangered species that have all but vanished from the American West. Efforts to bring them back, though, have been dogged by their reputation for eating humans, a trait that has made them even less popular than wolves as government biologists have fought to help the species regain some of its lost ground.
Even hikers, who tend to be among the most conservation-minded among forest users, have balked at the idea of sharing more hiking trails with more grizzlies.
The grizzly arguably has been affected more by the Bush administration’s war on the environment than any other forest dweller. It was Interior Secretary Gale Norton who scuttled plans to boost the bear population in the Bitterroots, effectively ending augmentation plans anywhere else. But the contention over grizzlies, and the collisions between science and politics goes back long before that.
Author David Knibb tells the tale in his book Grizzly Wars: The Public Fight Over the Great Bear. Plenty of other species have suffered at the hands of human expansion across the continent. Some have disappeared altogether. Few, though, spark the imagination, or for some, the hatred, that the grizzly does.
[more]
CONFIRMED
Senate Confirms Abbey to Lead BLM
After a dust-up raised by Sen. John McCain, the Senate has confirmed Bob Abbey as head of the Bureau of Land Management. [more]
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
‘Food Inc.’ Takes Aim At Corporate Ag
The latest salvo against the nation’s agricultural-industrial complex is on the big screen.
Food, Inc., a documentary by filmmaker Robert Kenner, is a forceful indictment of concentrated cattle ghettos, squalid chicken factories and cornfield deserts. At the film’s core is this thesis: the way we eat has changed more in the past 50 years than in the previous 10,000, and not for the better.
Sure, our shopping cart loads are getting cheaper, but our health, the environment, the animals and the people who handle them pay the price, Kenner argues.
“We spend less of our paycheck on our food than anytime, but it comes at a heavy cost,” Kenner told a crowd at the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Ideas Festival, after a screening of the film.
[more]
GOP BLUES
Hispanic Vote, Transplants Helped Democrats Rise in the West
For the first time in a century, the mountain West has more Democratic senators, and more Democratic congress members, than Republicans.
That’s part of a shift across the region and the nation, say a pair of Stanford University professors, that has the Republican Party in crisis.
“There is no silver bullet for Republicans,” says Doug Rivers, professor of political science at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. “For the short-run, the news is pretty bad.”
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FRACKING FRACAS
‘Fracking’ Bill Gets Buried - Again
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., made headlines last month when she introduced legislation to regulate chemicals used in a part of the gas-drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking” pumps a brew of chemicals into the ground to help the gas flow and open up gas plays once considered too tough to drill. These chemicals were regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act until the 2005 Energy Bill exempted them. DeGette wants that exemption taken away.
The energy industry has balked, though, saying the chemicals are safe and further regulation would be both costly and unnecessary. Environmentalists say the chemicals could contaminate groundwater and may have already poisoned people who were exposed to them.
DeGette has introduced similar legislation before, but it never caught the attention of the energy industry as much as this time. An Obama White House and a Democratic Congress -- now filibuster-proof -- has boosted its chances. New gas plays in places like New York and Pennsylvania have raised the profile.
But DeGette’s legislation probably won’t see a vote this year, either. She tells New West that fracking will see more studies before it sees more regulation.
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gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day
Interior Unveils Solar Hot Spots Across West
The Interior Department released maps on Tuesday detailing vast stretches of public land in the West that could be opened to utility-scale solar development.
The so-called Solar Energy Study Areas make up 670,000 acres in Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and California.
The proposed areas focus on lands considered to have excellent solar access and manageable slopes, with roads and transmission lines or corridors nearby, and with at least 2,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. Sensitive areas, wilderness areas and other lands with high-conservation values were ruled out.
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