Navajos are appealing a court decision that allows Arizona Snowbowl to engage in wastewater snowmaking on their sacred mountain. The San Francisco Peaks, which are located on drought-beleaguered public forest, have gotten less than two feet of snow this year, most of which has melted.

In the Albuquerque Journal, the tribes say that wastewater snowmaking on the San Francisco Peaks “would probably destroy our people, our way of life. Our prayers are not going to be strong.” Meanwhile Arizona Snowbowl officials take the stance that “the ski area occupies only 1 percent of the peaks and that snowmaking would occur on one-fourth of that area.”

This looks like an opportunity for collaboration and consensus. Snow Bowl officials could give tribal members permission to pee in the corner of Snowbowl officials’ houses — agreeing to cover no more than .25 percent of the floor area with urine (in an average 2000 sq. foot house, this would only amount to 5 sq. feet) — and Snowbowl could have its snowmaking. Surely everyone would consider such an arrangement fair?

For background on the issue check out the High Country News story Sacred claims in the free archive. View the source article at the Albuquerque Journal: Navajos Appeal Arizona Snowmaking Decision (subscription required). Also view this article on Snowbowl’s record-breaking lack of snow from the Arizona Republic.

The epic story of a grad student, a one-page research paper, and the frothing political broohaha that follows.

The Back Story: In 2002, the Biscuit Fire rips through Oregon, leaving 500,000 acres burned in its wake, and setting records as the largest burn in the state’s history. Based on the research of an Oregon State University forestry engineer named John Sessions the Bush administration proposes ambitious salvage logging plans, much of it aimed at roadless areas that were off limits to logging before the forest burned. This, predictably, spurs a lot of argument over forest recovery in general and the political wisdom of salvage logging, but that’s a side story. At root, we’ve a big hunk of burned forest, some salvage logging operations, and an opportunity to run some science experiments on said torched trees.

And now, the curtain rises:

Act One: Oregon State University researchers led by grad student Don Donato publish a paper in the respected journal Science with the yawn-inducing title: “Post-Wildfire Logging Hinders Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk.” They study the effects of salvage logging on logged and unlogged areas of the Biscuit burn, and the title pretty much says it all. So far, so boring. But then…

(Read on …)

Wal-Mart = Green Mart? Activists in Flagstaff put up strong opposition against the construction of a second Wal-Mart in that city, but the company prevailed and is preparing to begin construction. Meanwhile, company officials told the Arizona Daily Sun that the company is moving toward becoming “environmentally and globally sustainable.” You can view HCN’s archives for more on Wal-Mart.

Californians fight to drink from a polluted river. “the fight over ‘drinking rights to two of the most polluted rivers in the country’ shows that, in California, water remains ‘liquid gold’.” And it means water issues can only get stranger in the years ahead. LA Times story is here.

(Read on …)

Despite approvals at the county level, lack of demonstrated water supplies is clogging the gears of an Ariz. planned community. According to the Las Vegas Review Journal:

The Arizona Department of Water Resources has put Las Vegas-based developers on notice that they’ve not yet sufficiently demonstrated adequate water supply for master-planned communities that they propose to build in northwest Arizona… Director Herb Guenther said his agency can approve the applications only if developers can demonstrate that sufficient water is “physically, legally and continuously available” for 100 years.

The Dept. of Water Resources has stated that it’s willing to revisit the issue, so it’s a good bet the project will find some way to move forward, but it’s interesting that Arizona is getting touchier about its water supplies. And it provides an excellent peek into the crystal ball of a Western future where growth has some severe physical limitations.

Check out Matt Jenkins article “Arizona Returns to the Desert” for an in-depth report on Arizona’s water tribulations.

That’s what my friend says about hoasca (also known as ayahuasca), the hallucinogenic tea that just got a freedom of religion stamp of approval from the Supreme Court.

When we drink too much vodka, we assume the vomiting comes from the fact that we’re poisoning ourselves, but the ayahuasca ceremony apparently demands a certain “no pain, no gain” ethic. (Read on …)

Put some poop on the burner
In the alternative alternative energy category, San Francisco is looking into using dog feces for methane power. Apparently 4 percent of their landfill material is dog poop — which is nearly as much as disposable diapers. That’s a lot of poop going to waste, so to speak. Personally though, as the father of a two-year-old, it would be nice if the city focused on the baby poop problem next. I think I’d enjoy changing a diaper more if it was helping with the gas bill…

Supermax Green ™
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper (D) announced plans Feb. 15 to build a 2-megawatt solar plant (Read on …)

I’m posting this on the blog, as several people have asked me about it.
-Paolo

It’s true: Guns don’t kill people
By Paolo Bacigalupi

When I was in sixth grade, my entire class was marched into the school gym for Hunter Safety class. There, for several class periods, the public school system helped us understand the difference between the deer we could shoot and the ones we shouldn’t, the ethics of “shooting your wife’s deer” (which always made me think someone’s wife was keeping a deer as a pet, but instead meant using her permit), and then — in a thrilling culmination — we were taken out to the local gun range to shoot a regulation 10 bullets from a .22 rifle.

A few weeks later we got our perforated shooting targets back, along with our hunter safety certificates, and emerged newly minted soon-to-be hunters. I went home and told my mom I wanted a .22 for Christmas. (Read on …)

NREL just got its 32 workers back, most likely thanks to an impending visit from President Bush. Apparently it’s difficult to sell yourself as the Alternative Energy President if you’re visiting the nation’s premier renewable energy lab where funding has been cut by $28 million. According to the Rocky Mountain News, unused dollars at the DOE are going to be shifted to NREL to restore the 32 laid-off staffers.

Some of NREL’s R&D Projects were also cut in the budget process. Their fate remains in limbo.

Rocky Mountain News: 32 jobs restored at energy lab

The San Francisco Bay-Delta isn’t quite dead, and L.A. and San Diego may end up scrambling for water. A California regulator is taking a tough stand to halt the ongoing ecological crash in the San Francisco Bay-Delta. On Wednesday, the California Water Resources Control Board served a cease-and-desist order to the federal Bureau of Reclamation and the state Department of Water Resources, which pump water out of the Delta for farmers in California’s Central Valley and the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego. The order requires the two agencies to immediately obey water-quality standards for the Delta and could require them to stop pumping water if conditions deteriorate further.

And in Global Warm and Fuzzy News, national parks are becoming a new sort of endangered species, thanks to climate change. According to studies, Glacier National Park turns to meltwater by 2030. (Read on …)

In honor of Michelle Nijhuis’ recent win of the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism for her series of articles on global warming, I can’t help posting a link to this handy climate footprint calculator.

Now you can tot up your household’s climate impacts. With a few electricity and gas bills, and an estimate of how many miles you drive in your car and fly in planes, you can figure out how much you’re helping to shove Pika off the top of the mountain and how much you’re helping bark beetles kill off rare white pines. At the very end, you get a little animation that shows just how carbon saintly (or carbon evil) you really are.

And if you’d like to improve your rating here are some tips.

… To Lobbying Heaven.

Retired Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, D- turned R-Colo., has helped boost his lawfirm Holland & Knight to the top of the Indian Affairs Lobby League list in the latest edition of “The Hill.” Campbell is Northern Cheyenne, but lives in Southern Ute Country in Colorado.

At 10 a.m. Mountain Time, our illustrious editor will be participating in a live forum discussing the Endangered Species Act. Listen live at http://www.kqed.org

Listen to the archived show at http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R602150900

Influence Peddling

It’s shaping up to be Colorado vs. Texas in the battle over the Village at Wolf Creek, as State Rep. Mark Larson, R-Cortez, attempts to goad the Colorado delegation in Washington to launch an investigation into possible lobbying abuses by the village developer, Texas billionaire Billie Joe “Red” McCombs. Meanwhile, the developers have accused one of their major opponents of doing his own lobbying.

McCombs was instrumental in getting Mark Rey, appointed as Undersecretary of Agriculture, (Read on …)