The 2020 election issue

Trump vs. Biden on public lands The undercounted and disenfranchised Democracy’s Frayed

Vol. 52 / October 2020 No. 10 • hcn.org Western Front EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PUBLISHER Greg Hanscom EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brian Calvert ART DIRECTOR Cindy Wehling FEATURES DIRECTOR McKenna Stayner DIGITAL EDITOR Gretchen King ASSOCIATE EDITORS Emily Benson, Paige Blankenbuehler, Graham Lee Brewer, Maya L. Kapoor PHOTO EDITOR Roberto (Bear) Guerra ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Luna Anna Archey ASSISTANT EDITORS Jessica Kutz, Carl Segerstrom, Anna V. Smith EDITOR AT LARGE Betsy Marston COPY EDITOR Diane Sylvain CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Nick Bowlin, Elena Saavedra Buckley, Kalen Goodluck, Ruxandra Guidi, Jane C. Hu, Tom Baker, a fourth-generation rancher in Nevada’s Snake Valley. Rural Nevadans fought a water pipeline to Las Vegas — Michelle Nijhuis, Jonathan Thompson and won. Russel Albert Daniels / HCN CORRESPONDENTS Leah Sottile, Sarah Tory EDITORIAL INTERNS Jessica Douglas, Victoria Petersen, Eric Siegel DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Alyssa Pinkerton SENIOR DEVELOPMENT OFFICER Paul Larmer DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATES Hannah Stevens, Carol Newman DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT & MARKETING Gary Love EVENTS & BUSINESS PARTNER COORDINATOR Laura Dixon IT MANAGER Alan Wells DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Erica Howard ACCOUNTS ASSISTANT Mary Zachman Know CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Kathy Martinez CUSTOMER SERVICE Karen Howe, Mark Nydell, Tammy York GRANT WRITER the Janet Reasoner FOUNDER Tom Bell

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Brian Beitner (Colo.), John Belkin (Colo.), West. Seth Cothrun (Ariz.), Jay Dean (Calif.), Bob Fulkerson (Nev.), Wayne Hare (Colo.), High Country News is an independent, reader-supported nonprofit 501(c)(3) media organization that covers the important Laura Helmuth (Md.), Samaria Jaffe (Calif.), issues and stories that define the Western U.S. Our mission is to inform and inspire people to act on behalf of the West’s diverse Nicole Lampe (Ore.), Marla Painter (N.M.), natural and human communities. Beginning April 1, 2020, High Country News (ISSN/0191/5657) publishes monthly, 12 issues Bryan Pollard (Ark.), Raynelle Rino (Calif.), per year, from 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, CO 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post offices. POSTMASTER: Estee Rivera Murdock (Colo.), Andy Wiessner Send address changes to High Country News, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles in this issue are (Colo.), Florence Williams (D.C.) reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: 800-905-1155, hcn. org. For editorial comments or questions, write High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or [email protected], or call DIRECTOR EMERITUS Luis Torres (N.M.) 970-527-4898.

2 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS EDITOR’S NOTE FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS

Paige Blankenbuehler Durango, Colorado @paigeblank

Jessica Douglas Oregon @jessicadd29_

Jane C. Hu Seattle A helluva season @jane_c_hu

THERE’S NO DOUBT 2020 has been a difficult year. The pandemic, the protests, the wildfires Gabino Iglesias and smoke. And now, a fast-approaching election of the highest stakes. This year, it seems like Austin, Texas democracy itself is up for grabs, as disinformation, census undercounts, and voter suppression @Gabino_Iglesias have all become real threats to pluralism and representation. The Western U.S., for its part, has proven at times a staunch defender of democracy: Thanks in part to mail-in voting or to Voting-Day registrations, Colorado had the second-highest voter turnout in the country in 2018, Oregon the fifth, and Washington the seventh. But the West, too, is a place where the disadvantaged have little say in Adam Mahoney the decisions that impact them most. Chicago @AdamLMahoney This issue explores the reaches of the West where election season matters most. In our cover story, we report from Grand Junction, Colorado, which now houses the headquarters of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, to learn what’s at stake on Western public lands under the presidential candidates. What might another four years of “energy dominance” mean out here? Versus a policy of climate resilience? Khadijah Queen @authorkq In Indian Country, more disturbing questions beleaguer this election season. A botched census for tribal nations not only erodes political representation through inaccurate districting; it also leads to federal underfunding. Meanwhile, rural counties benefit from yet another kind of census chicanery: An archaic rule that counts incarcerated individuals in the counties where they’re imprisoned, not their homes, distorting demographics and inflating population figures. Still, the typically Jordana Rosenfeld disenfranchised are working to make their voices heard. In the Nevada primary, Bernie Sanders’ Pittsburgh campaign successfully labored to engage Latino voters. Now, in Arizona, energized young canvassers @rosenfeldjb are working to get out the Latino vote.

Also in the issue, we examine political organizing. In Nevada, a decades-old network of unlikely allies celebrates the end of the Las Vegas Pipeline, while in Alaska, 11 tribes are pushing for a better Eric Siegel environmental consultation process. In Portland, Black lives demonstrations brought violence and the Denver deployment of federal troops, altering the politics of the city. But the clouds of tear gas were nothing @ eric_siegel1 to the masses of acrid smoke now smothering the city, and the West, due to a swiftly changing climate and fire regime. And still a pandemic stalks the nation, as the economy staggers along.

What are we to do amid all this mess, at a time when cynics and cowards hold sway? The answer, I Anna V. Smith hope, is obvious. Vote. For as stupefying as 2020 has been, an election year offers you a collective, Portland, Oregon amplified voice. Vote, and speak. Whether those in power want to hear you or not. @annavtoriasmith

Brian Calvert, editor-in-chief

OCTOBER 2020 3 A mirrored reflection of the Book Cliffs, an area managed by the Bureau of Land Management, on the water of the FEATURE | ELECTION 2020 Government Highline Canal, a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation project that borders Grand Junction, Colorado (above). Andrew Miller / HCN

Grand Disjunction 38 A canvasser from the grassroots organization Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) leaves a flyer Public lands are at the center of Trump and Biden’s encouraging residents in Tucson’s primarily Latino competing energy goals. Mission Manor neighborhood to vote (right). Roberto (Bear) Guerra / HCN BY PAIGE BLANKENBUEHLER

Access to subscriber-only content: hcn.org ON THE COVER hcne.ws/digi-5210 A flag flies over Bigfork, Montana. Lauren Grabelle Follow us @highcountrynews

4 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS ELECTION 2020

Young and politically empowered 16 When ‘usual residence’ 20 In Arizona, Latino canvassers push to get out the vote. is a prison BY JESSICA KUTZ The census rule that distorts rural demographics. A turning point in Nevada 18 FACTS & FIGURES PHOTOS AND TEXT BY ROBERTO (BEAR) GUERRA BY JONATHAN THOMPSON

The politics of protest 22 November’s election will test Portland’s new political environment. BY CARL SEGERSTROM

Federal boots on city streets 23 With Congress gridlocked and courts restrained, the public alone is facing down authoritarian tendencies. BY CARL SEGERSTROM

A ‘second wave’ of 52 Indigenous voter suppression A new book explains the barriers to the ballot box. Q&A BY JESSICA DOUGLAS

#iamthewest 60 Jovan Jackson, Las Vegas BY EILEEN GUO AND MIKAYLA WHITMORE

REPORTAGE REFLECTION & REVIEW

Raw data 7 Leaving ‘Cancer Alley’ 51 What sewage can tell us about On recognizing the violence of COVID-19. environmental racism. WHAT WORKS BY JANE C. HU ESSAY BY ADAM MAHONEY

Undercounted, undermined 9 Gentrification comes to 54 An inaccurate census has major rural Montana implications for Indian Country. A new novel explores the fraught BY ANNA V. SMITH history of the Bitterroot Valley. DEPARTMENTS REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS Killing the Vegas pipeline 10 Nevada’s changing attitude toward Is spiritual growth possible 55 3 EDITOR’S NOTE water. BY ERIC SIEGEL without confronting whiteness? 6 LETTERS Sage advice 12 In White Utopias, cultural appropriation The ecological and ethical at festivals like Burning Man 13 THE LATEST problems of ‘smudging.’ goes under the microscope. BY TAYLAR DAWN STAGNER REVIEW BY JORDANA ROSENFELD 25 50TH ANNIVERSARY

Against ‘one way’ 14 Lessons from 56 26 DONORS / READER PROFILES communication homeschool Eleven Alaska tribes are pushing for Don’t be terrified. Be ready. 30 BOOKS & AUTHORS MARKETPLACE better environmental consultation. COVID-19 BY ANNA V. SMITH ESSAY BY KHADIJA QUEEN 58 HEARD AROUND THE WEST

OCTOBER 2020 5 LETTERS A NEW WEST story, because I want it to connect After reading Alex Carr Johnson’s to the land and everything that piece (“Now that you’ve gone West, goes on. That’s what makes us young man,” September 2020), I unique. ... Why wouldn’t we keep wonder, “What now?” What does our base, stay with our core and it mean — to Johnson and sim- radiate from the core?” Bravo! I do ilarly enlightened people — to hope her wisdom, experience and understand that you live on land knowledge is heeded. unfairly taken and that you are Lloyd Throne High Country News is dedicated to independent not entitled to? To me, a Native Medford, Oregon journalism, informed debate and discourse in the person, I worry that this trans- public interest. We welcome letters through lates not into meaningful action POLICING THE POLICE digital media and the post. Send us a letter, find us to support reconciliation efforts Thank you for your excellent arti- on social media, or email us at [email protected]. but to only that initial realization. cle, “Experts in de-escalation,” What we need, in my opinion, July 2020, explaining how are non-Native voices to firmly Eugene, Oregon, has been able support tribal rights to help cre- to avoid unnecessary policing. NARROWING NEPA Anyone who has read Marc Reis- ate a fair and just West. Why do This story needs to be sent to One result of the Trump adminis- ner’s book Cadillac Desert (1986) tribes with senior rights not have every mayor in every city in the tration’s insidious policy changes knows that the U.S. Army Corps decreed water rights when every- country. The program you wrote to weaken the National Environ- of Engineers and the Bureau of one else on the river does? Why are about, CAHOOTS — Crisis Assis- mental Policy Act, or NEPA, is the Reclamation don’t give a damn tribes left out of land-management tance Helping Out On The Streets Bureau of Land Management’s use about environmental impacts or decisions that affect sacred places — should be a blueprint for every of so-called “vegetation treatment” accurate numbers. and sacred resources? Let’s use city in our nation, not to take programs (“Narrow NEPA,” Sep- Caleb Efta, via social media this moment of insight that John- the place of police departments, tember 2020). These environmen- son offers to demand justice for but to be a separate department tally destructive efforts involve A WEST IN FLUX tribal people and their homelands. to funnel mental health calls to stripping natural lowland forests, I’m basically a climate refugee This, then, leads to a state- first responders to address dis- shrublands and grasslands using from Texas looking to settle some- ment Betsy Marston makes in turbances where crimes are not chaining, mowing, masticating, where in rural Washington or Ore- her interview that I take issue being committed. How many herbiciding and burning. The areas gon (“A West in flux,” September with, that the recent coverage of lives could be saved if people who are then seeded with non-native 2020). I recognize that Texas will Native issues is taking away from are going through a mental health forage grasses, which are favored likely be too hot to inhabit within the public-lands coverage and is crisis, drug abuse or homelessness by cattle and big game. These my lifetime. So these trends turning away some HCN readers. were met by someone who would programs are supported by many are concerning to me because I My response: If they don’t like it, listen and reflect on what they are ranchers and hunters, because already cannot afford any kind of let them leave. A New West is the going through and assist them in they open up new land for grazing reasonable acreage or homesite in West we need and what we need to getting genuine help? Maybe it’s and hunting with little regard for all but the most remote places. If I see represented in this magazine. already too late. I woke this morn- protection of natural ecosystems. have to compete with people with Daniel Cordalis ing thinking about the picture I In the past, the BLM was required money moving out of cities, I’m Arcata, California (but really saw with the news of “Trump’s to go through the NEPA process truly gonna be screwed. Durango, Colorado) troops” (or whatever they are for larger vegetation-removal pro- Ben Kessler, via social media called) confronting peaceful pro- posals. This provided an opportu- RADIATING FROM THE CORE testers and carrying guns and nity for input from scientists and This is true for every mountain I appreciate Betsy Marston echo- banners. Obviously, those people the public, which slowed down, town that has become a play- ing my concerns (“A little paper need some kind of mental help. modified or stopped some of these ground to East Coasters and with clout,” September 2020) It’s hard to make sense of much of landscape-destruction schemes. urbanites: The workers serving about HCN as stated in my letter to anything that’s been happening However, by gutting NEPA, the the upper class cannot afford to the editor last month. She encap- in our country right now. Trump administration is stop- live in the towns they work in (“A sulates my feelings by saying: MaryCarol Nelson ping scientific and public review West in flux,” September 2020). “Sometimes I don’t get why we do a Hailey, Idaho and enabling the BLM to plunge Meanwhile, the second- and forward with natural vegetation third-homeowners seem oblivi- removal while avoiding the public ous to how their choices fuel cli- spotlight. mate change, housing shortages, “If I have to compete with people William Mahoney, Denver inflated real estate markets, and economic inequality and injus- with money moving out of cities, REFUGES UNDER SIEGE tice in the communities and Regarding “A wildlife refuge mountain areas they claim to love. I’m truly gonna be screwed.” under siege” (September 2020): Erin Sweeney, via social media

6 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Blake Wiedenheft, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Montana State University and a member of the university’s COVID-19 task force, at the City of Bozeman Water Reclamation Facility. Mike Greener / HCN

area at the time, and that 6 million To capture such a snapshot of WHAT WORKS gallons of water flow through community spread, Josh French, the plant daily, he wasn’t sure the operations foreman at the if the virus would be detectable. Bozeman Water Reclamation But Wiedenheft immediately Facility, and his colleagues take found evidence of it — and it kept regular samples from the city’s appearing in the four samples he wastewater, which flows from analyzed over the next 10 days. showers, laundry machines, greasy Wiedenheft worked with local sinks and, of course, toilets. All officials to continue regular testing that liquid — a cloudy, hay-col- Raw data as Bozeman became one of the first ored mixture with only a mild cities in the world to look to sewage stench — arrives at the wastewater What sewage can tell us about COVID-19. for answers. Now, cities across plant, where a machine called an the Western United States are autosampler takes small samples. BY JANE C. HU sampling wastewater for evidence The autosampler looks like two of SARS-CoV-2 as a potential “early mini fridges stacked vertically. The warning” system for outbreaks. top compartment houses a tube Scientists estimate that up to 45% and pump, which hoovers up half- of people infected with the virus cup samples and deposits them THE SEWER IS THE LAST STOP the university’s COVID-19 task force. show no symptoms. Given that into a plastic jug in the cool bottom for Bozeman, Montana’s waste, but Back in March, a colleague asymptomatic people are less likely compartment. Every 24 hours, lately, it’s the first one for Blake mentioned testing wastewater for to get tested, many cases may go a sample from this jug is taken Wiedenheft’s work. An associate evidence of COVID-19 in human undetected. With many areas to Wiedenheft’s lab for testing. professor of microbiology and waste. The next day, Wiedenheft experiencing substantial delays in Wiedenheft’s lab employs the same immunology at Montana State drove down to Bozeman’s swab test results, daily wastewater methods used to analyze COVID-19 University, Wiedenheft has joined wastewater treatment plant to see testing can give scientists an idea nose swab tests: Researchers take other virologists, epidemiologists if he could grab a sample. Given of community infection nearly RNA — whether floating in a liter and immunologists as a member of how few cases there were in the immediately, Wiedenheft said. of wastewater or smeared on a swab

OCTOBER 2020 7 — and perform a procedure that are virus positive or negative — avoided reporting such estimates. track wastewater as an indicator of amplifies the genetic signature of are posted on the county’s public “We don’t feel confident enough to undetected community spread. “If the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That allows health website. In the 26 samples make that translation,” he said. we’re not seeing tests in the tradi- researchers to identify the virus. taken between June and mid-Au- But in some cities, officials have tional medical testing, and also The challenge of analyzing gust, the coronavirus was detected released estimates using waste- not seeing them in the wastewater, wastewater, as opposed to a swab, every time. water data to indicate how many that’s a validating factor for us.” is that RNA samples are such a tiny French said they are now exper- community members are infected. As more areas launch wastewa- part of the overall jug of wastewa- imenting with sampling from For instance, analyses by Biobot, ter tracking programs, Wiedenheft ter. “Imagine you’ve got a jar full specific areas of town, including a wastewater testing startup, esti- said that one thing is still needed: of jelly beans, and you’re dipping the hospital and Montana State’s mated that the levels of SARS-CoV-2 a central repository for this data, into the jar to see if you can find a campus. Engineers have identified found in Moscow, Idaho’s sewage which could provide a bigger-pic- red jelly bean,” said Wiedenheft. their main sewer flow lines and corresponded to 1,800 cases. At ture view of viral spread. Over the “If your jar is small, it’s more likely placed mobile samplers just beneath the time of the estimate, Latah last few months, Montana has you’re going to scoop up that red manhole covers, where they collect County, where Moscow is located, developed several monitoring sites, jelly bean, but if your jar is big, it’s samples one day a week. As the had only 46 known cases. (Biobot and some states, like California, less likely, and you’re going to have school year kicks off, MSU’s data declined to be interviewed, and its Colorado and Wyoming, created to collect more of the sample to find could track viral spread on campus, hired communications firm did their own networks. It’s difficult just it.” The virus is like the red jelly while the hospital data could help not answer questions about how to compile a list of cities conduct- bean: To get an accurate glimpse scientists better understand how the company calculates case esti- ing testing, since some key data is into how much virus is in a city’s their results map on to community mates. A recent study published by private; Biobot said it is working water, scientists have to make sure spread. “We know how much viral Biobot’s co-founders and colleagues with 400 facilities, but declined the samples they collect are repre- protein (Wiedenheft) is detecting in reported that assumptions about to provide additional informa- sentative of its overall water flow. his lab, but how many individuals individuals’ viral load can massively tion, including how many cities That means taking more frequent is that reflective of?” asked French. affect these estimates. According that corresponds to. Wiedenheft samples at peak times — in the Researchers have yet to arrive to their calculations, assuming that points to Johns Hopkins’ popular mornings, when people are starting at a definitive answer. Converting infected people have a low viral load coronavirus tracker as an example their routines, or in the evenings, wastewater data into an estimate of leads to an estimate that 5% of the of a well-organized health surveil- when they are doing chores — as positive cases requires a key metric population is infected, whereas lance tool. “It would be nice to have well as less frequent samples when scientists are still learning about: assuming a high viral load will lower a wastewater surveillance website the water flow is lower, as it is very how much virus a sick person sheds. that estimate to 0.1%.) that does the same thing, where you early in the morning. Bozeman’s That depends on the stage of illness So far, many local officials have could look at a geographic map and autosampler collects around three the person is in, as well as how looked to wastewater analyses look at what’s happening,” he said. dozen samples daily. severe the illness is. Because those more as a way to corroborate their In mid-August, the U.S. Centers The results of Wiedenheft’s lab variables are hard to nail down, knowledge about community viral for Disease Control and Department analyses — whether the samples Wiedenheft has intentionally spread than as a way to estimate of Health and Human Services case numbers. “We won’t know announced plans for a National how many people in the commu- Wastewater Surveillance System, a nity have COVID-19 from the portal to which health departments methodology, but this data will tell can submit their wastewater data. us if trends are going up or down,” After the federal government’s says Nicole Rowan, clean water changes to a portal tracking hospi- program manager at the Colorado tal data led to widespread reporting Department of Public Health and delays and data inconsistencies, Environment, which has launched it’s unclear how the database a statewide wastewater testing effort. will fare — and whether this new Matt Kelley, health officer at initiative provides funding to areas the Gallatin City-County Health conducting testing. Wiedenheft’s Department, said that when his funding goes through August, and county went through a period of he’s unsure where the money will few cases in May, the sewage data come from after that. “If wastewa- gave additional confirmation that ter sampling is important — and spread had slowed. “It was some- I think it is, since there’s plenty what reassuring to have another of evidence to suggest it’s really backstop indicator of what was the only real-time indicator in happening,” he said — and when the community — then it seems positive COVID-19 swab tests rose important to have funding to City of Bozeman Wastewater Pretreatment Coordinator Mark DeWald, left, and Water Reclamation Facility Lab Foreman Josh French, right, separate the housing again, so did levels of SARS-CoV-2 support this ongoing effort,” he unit of an autosampler to collect a wastewater sample jug from a Montana State in the water. Kelley said that once said. “That’s imperative to be able University sewage line collection site. Mike Greener / HCN cases fall again, it will be helpful to to manage a pandemic.”

8 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REPORTAGE

Undercounted, undermined An inaccurate census has major implications for Indian Country.

BY ANNA V. SMITH

THE FIRST PLACE the U.S. Census Bureau surveyed for the 2020 census was Tooksook Bay, Alaska, part of the agency’s long tradi- tion of conducting early counts in the state’s remote villages. In March, with about half of Selena Rides Horse speaks with Gerald Pease at a drive-thru station set up by Western Native Voice in Lodge Grass, rural Alaska still uncounted, enumerators were Montana, to help members of the Crow Indian Tribe participate in the U.S. Census. Matthew Brown / AP Photo pulled out of the field because of COVID-19, as the bureau shifted its schedule to accommodate political representation, owing to redistricting, to be invested in an accurate count. In July, the the barriers the pandemic presented. Then, in and it also decreases federal funding for things White House published a memo excluding August, the Census Bureau quietly released an like schools, houses and health care. undocumented immigrants from the census. In updated deadline for the census, moving it from Data from the U.S. census provides the it, President Donald Trump wrote that states that Oct. 31 to Sept. 30, eliminating four weeks of primary measurement by which federal funds “encourage” undocumented immigrants “should critical outreach. September is moose-hunting are directed to tribal governments, putting $675 not be rewarded with greater representation in season in Alaska, so people are generally harder billion at stake. To distribute funds to tribes the House of Representatives,” and that such to reach; it’s also the beginning of storm season, for the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic exclusion is “more consonant with the princi- which means power outages and delays for mail Security Act, for example, the federal govern- ples of representative democracy underpinning delivery by plane. As a result, despite the early ment relied on the 2010 census. That census our system of Government.” Soon after, the U.S. start, Alaskans in general and Native Alaskans had an estimated undercount of 4.9%, so tribes Census Bureau shortened the count. in particular are still lagging behind the national received less than they would have, given an Tribal nations, meanwhile, have played a average in their response rates. accurate count. This year’s count is shaping up large role in pushing for a longer, more accurate “In terms of wrapping up the census, there’s to be much lower — something closer to 1990’s count. In early September, a lawsuit to reinstate not a worst time for rural Alaska and Alaska 12% undercount — meaning tribes will have far the longer count was brought by nonprofits, Natives,” Nicole Borromeo (McGrath Native fewer resources in the decade ahead to recover local governments and tribes, including the Village), executive vice president and general from the pandemic and the economic turmoil Navajo Nation, whose census response rate at counsel of the Alaska Federation of Natives. This it has produced. “The communities that are the time was just 12.8%. is the first time the census has been available being undercounted are the same ones being The Native Voice Network, a nationwide to complete online or by phone in Alaska, a hardest hit by COVID-19,” said Jaime Gloshay coalition of 40 Native-led organizations, also necessary option given the pandemic, but the (White Mountain Apache), the founder of Native began pushing Congress to restore the origi- process has run into issues of internet and phone Women Lead, who has worked on get-out-the- nal Oct. 31 deadline, reaching out to individual connectivity. Meanwhile, many Alaska Natives count efforts in New Mexico. lawmakers and organizing petitions with thou- are still waiting for someone to show up at their An accurate count is not just about fund- sands of signatures to call for an accurate count. door, questionnaire in hand, though Borromeo ing, or districting, or representation in govern- Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, whose constit- has warned, “A numerator in rural Alaska is not ment; it also reflects the U.S. government’s trust uency is heavily Indigenous, joined a biparti- coming. Do not wait a second longer.” obligations to Indigenous nations. “Today, that san group of 48 members of Congress to call The current census hurdles are not only trust responsibility is upheld primarily through for an extension. “People understand that this affecting Alaska Natives: The pandemic has federal funding formulas, based on census is a politically motivated effort to undermine severely stymied the 2020 census throughout data,” Borromeo said. “So if we don’t have an our political clout and to strip us of resources,” Indian Country, as many tribes closed reservation accurate and complete count of Native Amer- Chrissie Castro (Navajo), who helps coordinate borders to nonresidents, including census work- icans and Alaska Natives, the federal govern- the network’s efforts, said in an interview. “We’re ers. The U.S. census typically undercounts Indig- ment is breaching its special responsibility to already stripped of so many resources, so this enous populations, more than any other group in our people.” is just particularly egregious and very short- the country. This ultimately limits Indigenous The Trump administration does not appear sighted.”

OCTOBER 2020 9 Spilsbury, an Ely Shoshone tribal War. In the late 1970s and 1980s, REPORTAGE elder who played a significant role the Air Force sought to conduct in the Water Network, said in a hazardous testing of intercon- recent interview. “Never. That’s the tinental ballistic missiles and kind of feeling that I think most of supersonic military operations in us had. Just do the best we can and eastern Nevada. This required deep Killing the Vegas Pipeline let’s make something happen, even drilling into newfound aquifers, if it does take forever.” and tribal nations, rural counties, Nevada’s changing attitude toward water. The Vegas Pipeline, had it ranchers and environmentalists succeeded, threatened to make a became increasingly distrustful of BY ERIC SIEGEL dustbowl of 305 springs, 112 miles the massive groundwater pump- of streams, 8,000 acres of wetlands ing. They put their differences and 191,000 acres of shrubland aside to mobilize public opinion habitat, almost all of it on public and beat back two federal projects lands. Major utilities in the West — the Missile Experimental (“MX”) FOR DECADES, the Great Basin Development Project,” a proposal rarely fail in getting what they want and the Electronic Combat Test Water Network has made a point to pump 58 billion gallons of water (witness California’s Owens Valley, Capability (“ECTC”). of strange bedfellowing. Its ranks a year 300 miles to Las Vegas from circa 1913), but the Water Network’s Their single-minded focus on include ranchers, environmen- the remote rural valleys of Nevada multipronged, intergenerational water and ability to tease out a strat- talists, sportsmen, rural county and Utah. Nevadans called it the legal battle creates a different prec- egy from a broad coalition of people commissioners, Indigenous lead- Las Vegas Pipeline; its ardent foes edent, showing that diverse water proved an asset in resisting power- ers, water users from Utah, and called it a water grab. In May, their interests can transcend any single ful entities. “We beat the federal rural and urban Nevadans. Over the three decades of resistance to the approach or ideology — and win. government,” said Abby Johnson, years, these groups united against a pipeline ended in victory: The proj- who worked for a statewide envi- single cause: the Southern Nevada ect was terminated. UNEXPECTED ALLIANCES like ronmental group fighting the MX Water Authority’s “Groundwater “Never give up the ship,” Delaine this have their origins in the Cold project and later helped form the

10 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Tom Baker, a fourth-generation rancher in the Snake Valley, hosted “water tours” on his ranch to educate the public on the importance of groundwater in Nevada (left). Delaine Spilsbury, an Ely Shoshone tribal elder who worked with the Water Network, stands at Swamp Cedars in Spring Valley, a site significant to her and the Western Shoshone that would have been threatened by groundwater pumping (right). Russel Albert Daniels / HCN

‘derelict in his duties,’ ” as Kyle Roerink, the Executive Director of the Water Network, said in a recent interview. The court’s decision voided SNWA’s water applications, forcing the Water Authority to re-file them with the state engineer, who in turn reopened the protest period. The Water Network applied pres- sure from multiple angles, though, and the legal wins continued on other fronts. Activists successfully argued, for example, that the state engineer miscalculated the water levels in the basins where the Southern Nevada Water Authority wanted to pump, allowing for over-allocations. Their efforts convinced a district court to order the state engineer to recalculate. Beyond its legal strategy, the Great Basin Water Network. “It never shortages on the Colorado River, establish the pipeline in the public Water Network built alliances would have happened had there not the newly formed Southern Nevada imagination as another water grab. geographically — notably with been such activism against it. The Water Authority (SNWA) reacti- But despite these advances, ranchers, farmers, and county public opposition and outcry across vated the water filings. By 2005, there was a breakdown in trust, as commissioners in western Utah, rural Nevada was essential.” the SNWA requested legal hearings. state and federal agencies greenlit who followed in lockstep with the This united front endured into That was “when the project caught the project, circumventing bedrock Confederated Tribes of the Goshute 1989, when the Las Vegas Valley steam and really began,” said Steve environmental laws. A 2004 federal there and the Church of Jesus Christ Water District filed 146 water right Erickson, an organizer with the wilderness bill included a rider of Latter-day Saints, and public applications with the Nevada state Water Network in Utah, who worked granting the SNWA a public utilities health, citizen science and conser- engineer — the state’s top water closely with residents in Baker, right-of-way for the project, facil- vation groups across the state. By regulator — to pump 800,000 acre- Nevada. “This was a feisty group of itating its approval. In 2006, the 2015, their efforts convinced the feet of groundwater from eastern people, and they had worked on this Department of Interior — includ- Republican governor of Utah, Gary Nevada. The former anti-nuclear stuff before. They knew they could ing the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Herbert, to reject a bi-state water coalition organized area residents win if they were persistent.” which failed to consult the tribes it agreement that would have allowed again — this time against their In 2007, the Great Basin Water represents — entered a closed-door the SNWA to pull water from the own state, filing protests with the Network received nonprofit agreement with the SNWA, drop- Snake Valley, in the Nevada-Utah state engineer’s office. Great Basin status, formalizing the coalition. ping all federal protests in exchange borderlands. “The governor was National Park and the Bureau of It partnered with rural county for a contentious monitoring and getting pressure from all sides,” Land Management, concerned that governments to help pay for mitigation plan. Erickson said. “At one time, he had groundwater withdrawals could expert witnesses and legal repre- A series of legal battles ensued at three water lawyers and the director affect surface-water resources under sentation in court, and established the state level. The Water Network’s of the Utah Department of Natural their jurisdiction, also filed protests. “water tours,” in order to teach initial legal strategy, which focused Resources telling him to sign the The water applications sat Nevadans how the region’s land- on due process rather than water agreement. But he listened to us.” dormant for over a decade. But scape of springs, seeps and streams law, ultimately prevailed in 2010 at The Southern Nevada Water in 2002, in the face of worsen- sustained a uniquely Nevadan the Nevada Supreme Court, which Authority, meanwhile, undertook ing drought and looming supply way of life. These efforts helped found that “the state engineer was (continued on page 29)

OCTOBER 2020 11 ANALYSIS

Sage advice

The ecological and ethical problems of ‘smudging.’

BY TAYLAR DAWN STAGNER

White sage marketed as “sustainably grown” for sale in a Denver, Colorado, metaphysical store. Luna Anna Archey / HCN

CHANCES ARE YOU KNOW the scent of sweathouse ceremonies. The smoke was used white sage. You can get written permission from white sage as well as you know patchouli. The for fumigation, and the plant crushed to use as a private landowners,” Leopold said. “And you can sweet aroma of its dusty, pale green leaves deodorant and to mask the tell-tale odor of hunt- get permits for personal wild-crafting. But also, permeates New Age spirituality shops across ers. The Chumash also ate the plant, preparing there’s very unspecific guidelines that sellers the Western U.S. The burning of California white it in various ways. exploit.” sage, especially, has become an accepted form of California white sage still grows abundantly Well-intentioned vendors and patrons alike cultural appropriation. Today, shops that carry in Southern California, although over-harvest- might believe they are buying sage directly sage, whether in mountain tourist towns or on ing has kept it from growing in the tall, thick from a private grower, not realizing that it was Etsy, rarely consider its Indigenous origins or the bushes it once did. Indigenous peoples continue harvested without permission from public current-day implications of its use. a tradition of handling it in environmentally lands, possibly causing significant damage to California white sage, or Salvia apiana, is a sustainable ways by harvesting only what is the landscape. perennial desert shrub that grows several feet needed for ceremony. The Gabrielino-Tongva, a state-recognized high. During April, the plant’s flowers, which There is very little data about where and how tribe in Southern California, have a relation- range in color from white to pale lavender, the plant is being harvested today for commer- ship with white sage that goes back 7,000 years, attract bees, giving it the nickname “bee sage.” cial purposes. Without rigorous research into ever since the tribe has been in the Los Angeles Indigenous cultures have collected, dried and the supply chain that takes a bundle of sage from Basin. To the Tongva, sage is not a commodity, burned the plant for centuries, using its smoke California to an Etsy shopping cart, consumers but a member of the family. This creates a rela- as medicine and in ceremonies. The scent is simply cannot know if their sage was gathered tionship between medicine and person that is unique, an earthy, sweet aroma that curls in and sold in a culturally ethical or environmen- more complex than commerce can account for, a rising circles during smudging, clinging to tally responsible way. kinship beyond dollars and cents. “I have a firm clothes and hair for hours after burning. United Plant Savers, a nonprofit that advo- stance in regards to medicinal plants that they It’s a beautiful plant with many uses. And cates for the preservation of medicinal plants, are not to be sold: period,” said Weshoyot Alvitre, that’s part of the problem: It’s become so popu- has put California white sage on its list of threat- a Tongva illustrator who advocates for her ances- lar that it has been commodified to the point ened species. Director Susan Leopold said the tral land. Growing up, Alvitre was taught that of erasure, robbed of its Indigenous roots and lack of understanding about sage’s sustainabil- selling such medicine was wrong. “It doesn’t cultural importance. ity and cultural importance — coupled with its matter if the company is Native or non-Native; Historically, white sage has had many uses. seeming ubiquity — has led people to acquire it is against protocol to sell medicines.” The Kumeyaay and Cahuilla used it to treat and use it irresponsibly. The white sage industry either ignores — or fever, and its leaves were eaten or smoked in “There are no commercial permits for selling capitalizes on — the plant’s importance to the

12 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Indigenous population, she said, and it can be found in “withcraft” and “Native spirituality” kits on Amazon, or purchased for “cleansing rituals” at a local New Age shop. Like dreamcatchers, sage has been degraded for consumption, she said. Buzzwords like “responsibly sourced” Unfortunately, it’s not easy to find ethically, responsibly — and legally — sourced white sage. mean nothing if you don’t know your “If someone says, ‘Oh yeah, we got this sage sustainably,’ I don’t think that means much source or their practices. anymore,” said Deborah Small, who writes about contemporary uses for plants important to Indigenous peoples. Buzzwords like “respon- sibly sourced” mean nothing if you don’t know your source or their practices, she said. The plant itself may not be endangered, but its habitat is threatened by encroaching develop- was too expensive. Bret Williamson, owner of the Colorado ment. In early August, intense wildfires destroyed The fact that California white sage is not listed wholesaler Crystal Peddler, has been selling sage miles of white sage habitat. Global warming as endangered gives people the sense that it’s OK for 30 years. His sage is gathered by wild-crafters impacts the plant in other ways, too, as rising sea to harvest it lavishly and sell it for a profit. The from Bureau of Land Management land, he said. levels erode its coastal habitat. Unauthorized, regulations on harvesting are confusing and rarely And though he knows you need a permit to wild- unregulated harvesting of the plant for commer- enforced. Under California law, white sage cannot craft on BLM land for personal use, he admits cial purposes accelerates the problem. simply be gathered from the side of the road. In he’s never actually seen a permit, or even asked Meanwhile, even those non-Native store some parts of the state, there are fines for harvest- for or received permission to gather. Despite this, owners who realize that there are gaps in their ing without proper permitting. It’s legal to take Williamson said he believes the sage he sells has sourcing appear unmotivated to change their for personal use with written permission from been ethically collected. “I know enough people practices. Herbs and Arts, for example, a Denver the property owner. But who owns the property? out there,” he said. metaphysical shop, claims that its vendor ethi- Few shops accurately document where and how Deborah Small and her co-author, Rose cally sources the sage it sells. That vendor is their sage was collected. In California, it could Ramirez, who is Chumash and Yaqui, said the Full Moon Farm in Arizona, which supplies be the Forest Service, the state Fish and Wildlife only solution is to make sure that the “respon- 350 stores across the country. The farm’s owner, Department or the Bureau of Land Management. sibly sourced” label actually means something. Wendy Hillyer, is not Indigenous. She started the The Etiwanda Preserve in San Bernardino County, The two women have spoken about California company, she said, because white sage “creates for example, is home to complex underground white sage across the state, trying to warn people a feeling of sacredness in everyday life, and I waterways that help the plant flourish, an irresist- about poaching and explain how to responsibly wanted to share that with everyone.” Hillyer ible attraction for poachers. harvest and use the plant. But people would initially obtained white sage through “friends Poachers rarely care about sustainable rather just learn how to smudge, and they seem of friends.” Then she found a regular supplier, harvests. White sage should be harvested at the to have no interest in the ethical and sustainabil- though she declined to disclose the supplier end of the growing season, after it flowers. But ity issues surrounding the plant. Ramirez has or information about the harvest because she poachers cut off the top of the plant before it ideas for ways to help curb poaching — creating said she was worried about “poachers.” Hillyer reaches maturity. In 2018, 400 pounds of illegally special certification, for example, and doing acknowledged that she could have purchased harvested California white sage were confiscated more education and outreach. “We are well past sage from Indigenous suppliers, but thought it by the Rancho Cucamonga Police Department. the point of not selling it,” Ramirez said.

THE LATEST Backstory Followup Over the past 30 years, some 2,000 prisoners Now, some members of inmate crews in have participated in Arizona’s inmate wildfire California will be able to have their records program. Prisoners often take pride in giving expunged after prison, making them eligible back to society, risking their lives to battle to work as firefighters. Their professional blazes for less than $2 an hour. With the experience is desperately needed: In March, climate crisis and historic fire suppression California responded to COVID-19 cases in Prison making fire seasons longer and more prisons by expediting parole for some prison- destructive, prison crews save Western states ers and quarantining others, reducing inmate tens of millions of dollars yearly. In Arizona, crews by half. Then, in August and September, fire some inmates can join state forestry crews hundreds of fires blazed across California, after release, but that’s not true for all Western including three of the four largest in the state’s states (“When Arizona catches fire, prisoners history, creating a firefighter shortage. crews step up,” 8/5/19). —Maya L. Kapoor

OCTOBER 2020 13 TK image caption here. Bethany Goodrich Marina Anderson, Kasaan’s tribal administrator, climbs an uprooted tree on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska (above). A Haida totem pole in the Organized Village of Kasaan. Totem pole crafting requires old-growth red cedar trees (right). Organized Village of Kake tribal members fish for sockeye salmon using a net. Salmon spawn in streams throughout the Tongass National Forest (top). Bethany Goodrich

14 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REPORTAGE Donald Trump has not. Trump’s approach to Indigenous issues — including his reduction of Bears Ears National Monument, a tribal-led initiative, by 85% — has favored industry over Indigenous nations. But no matter who is presi- dent, longstanding problems persist in the way agencies deal with tribes. In a sweeping review of the decision-making process last year by the Government Accountability Office, interviews Against ‘one way’ communication with 57 tribal leaders and comments from 100 tribes pointed out problems, saying agencies Eleven Alaska tribes are pushing for better environmental consultation. started the process too late and did not consider their input or respect tribal sovereignty. The BY ANNA V. SMITH agencies, meanwhile, said they had difficulties contacting tribes and complained about the lack of adequate consultation resources. Too often, what constitutes enough consul- tation is determined by federal agencies, with little recourse for tribes that disagree. In their IN THE EARLY FALL of 2018, Marina Anderson are used for canoes; salmon watersheds; and Traditional Homelands petition, the 11 tribes sped down the rough road connecting one side lands with traditional fish camps and burial sites. wrote that the process is currently a “one-way of Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island to the other. The July petition to create a “Traditional system of communication,” where federal agen- She had only a few hours to get to a public meet- Homelands Conservation Rule” represents a new cies use consultation to “issue orders and give ing over the potential opening of the Tongass strategy in tribal nations’ ongoing efforts to hold updates to the tribes about what will happen.” National Forest, her tribe’s ancestral land, to the federal government to its legal responsibility In the case of the Tongass, six tribes, includ- logging and mining. to consult with them on projects that impact them. ing Kasaan, had signed on to cooperate with Mail is delivered by floatplane once a week If the USDA accepts the petition, it would create a the federal government on a request for devel- to the Organized Village of Kasaan’s tribal office mechanism to involve the 11 tribes in the conser- opment by the state of Alaska. (Some have on a rugged island in southeast Alaska. But the vation and management of their ancestral lands since withdrawn.) But throughout the two-year mail can be delayed for a week, or even a month, — something that’s increasingly critical as climate process, tribes said the USDA repeatedly ignored by high winds and rough waters. Anderson, who change shifts the wildlife patterns and habitat that their input and requests for in-person meetings; was then working as a tribal office assistant, had so many remote villages, including Kasaan, rely on. fast-tracked seemingly arbitrary deadlines; and opened an important letter barely in time: The proceeded as usual despite a pandemic that has U.S. Department of Agriculture had notified THE TERM “TRIBAL CONSULTATION” disproportionally hurt Native communities. the tribe of a public hearing, to be held that oozes bureaucracy, but it is a primary process by None of the tribes recommended a full repeal very day, on whether to remove Roadless Rule which tribal nations can influence projects that of the Roadless Rule, and around 95% of public protections from the Tongass National Forest. will affect them by interacting with the U.S. on a comments opposed complete exemption. So “We were blindsided by it,” Anderson, who is now government-to-government basis. The process is far, however, exemption remains the U.S. Forest Kasaan’s tribal administrator, said recently. a way to acknowledge that tribes retain a relation- Service’s clear preference. In the end, Anderson and the tribal official she ship with ancestral lands, including those beyond “The Forest Service recognizes and supports the went with made it to the meeting and were able to reservation boundaries. “It’s an opportunity for sovereignty and self-determination of American hear directly from the Forest Service and speak an affected government — not just a stakeholder Indian and Alaska Native tribal nations through with the other tribes present. Still, Anderson’s — to have a say in what happens,” said Natalie building, maintaining, and enhancing govern- experience exemplifies the federal government’s Landreth (Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma), senior ment-to-government relationships with Tribal long-running failure to adequately work with staff attorney at Native American Rights Fund. Governments,” said a spokesperson for the USDA, tribes. Alaska’s petition to the Forest Service to “These are very real rights.” adding that it has received and is reviewing the increase logging on the Tongass was the latest But the United States has not always consulted petition. “We engage inclusively with people in move in a two-decade battle, including policy with tribes in good faith. The construction of the mutual respect, active collaboration, and shared changes, court decisions, appeals and injunc- Dakota Access Pipeline, the designation (and stewardship. We promote meaningful nation-to- tions, over the protection of 9.4 million acres un-designation) of Bears Ears National Monument nation consultation with tribal nations.” of the world’s largest unfragmented temperate in Utah, and the construction of the U.S.-Mexico With the petition, the tribes — Kasaan, the rainforest. In response, at the end of July, 11 border wall through Kumeyaay, Tohono O’odham Organized Village of Kake, Klawock Cooperative Southeast Alaska Native tribes, including Kasaan, and other tribal lands all represent federal deci- Association, Hoonah Indian Association, petitioned the USDA, the agency that oversees sions made with little or no tribal input. Ketchikan Indian Community, Skagway the Forest Service, requesting a new rule that Consultation was formalized as a process in Traditional Council, Organized Village of would require it to work with tribes to iden- 2000, when it became a requirement for federal Saxman, Craig Tribal Association, Wrangell tify and protect parts of the Tongass that hold agencies. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Cooperative Association, Yakutat Tlingit life-sustaining value for the Tlingit, Haida and Bush and Barack Obama each reaffirmed and Tribe, and Central Council Tlingit and Haida Tsimshian — old-growth red cedar trees, which expanded the consultation process. President (continued on page 29)

OCTOBER 2020 15 REPORTAGE | ELECTION 2020 secured victories in their state, helping elect Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D, in the midterms, and many are determined, despite the pandemic, to get out the vote for the presidential election.

THE NUMBER OF potential Latino voters Young and politically empowered has increased, but so far they haven’t fully participated — at least not in past presidential In Arizona, Latino canvassers push to get out the vote. elections. This year could be different, accord- ing to Joseph Garcia, executive director of the BY JESSICA KUTZ | PHOTOS BY ROBERTO (BEAR) GUERRA Chicanos por La Causa Action Fund, a nonprofit advocacy organization focused on Latino voter engagement, among other initiatives. “Latinos are a very young population here in Arizona, and as a result, in past years many Latinos weren’t old enough to vote, and their parents (perhaps WHEN FHERNANDA ORTIZ was 16, an orga- working on alternative ways for reaching poten- one, and in some cases both) were ineligible to nizer from the Arizona Center for Empowerment, tial voters, such as sending out mass texts and vote because they weren’t U.S. citizens or natu- or ACE, a social justice organization, spoke at her using social media messenger services. This ralized,” he said. high school. After the talk, Ortiz signed up for a virtual canvassing isn’t easy. “When you are out In Arizona, though, a growing number of six-week political education course run by ACE there, you can be with someone until they say Latinos like Ortiz have reached voting age; in in partnership with Living United for Change like the fifth, ‘No,’ ” Ortiz said. “You can follow fact, 24% of eligible voters in the state are Latino, in Arizona (LUCHA), its sister organization. them to their car and try and convince them in according to the Pew Research Center. “That has There, she learned about the issues impacting those couple of minutes. It’s super easy. Now, only happened in the past few years — there are her community, including discrimination and people can just hang up. Some of my folks have enough Latinos to make a difference,” Garcia anti-immigrant policies; she even attended an had really bad conversations.” said. Approximately 100,000 young Latinos Operation Streamline hearing in Tucson, where Organizers like Ortiz are part of a growing have become eligible in Arizona since the 2018 dozens of shackled, undocumented immigrants cohort of politically engaged young Latinos in elections, he said, and young Latino voters tend appeared before a judge for criminal prosecution. Arizona. Many will be eligible to vote for the first to be progressive, making them a possible factor In Phoenix, where she lives, Ortiz learned time in the upcoming election. They’ve already in Bernie Sanders’ success in Nevada’s prima- how to exercise her political rights. “I didn’t ries. Nationwide, nearly 2 million Latino citizens know back then that I could go to the state will have turned 18 and be newly eligible to vote Capitol and listen to a hearing, or watch state in the November election. Six of the 12 states representatives,” she said in a video call in July. with the highest number of registered Latino “When Jeff Flake was senator, I didn’t know I voters are in the Western United States: Arizona, could go to his office, or write a letter. That was California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and crazy to me.” Washington, according to Unidos U.S., a Latino By the 2018 midterms, Ortiz was volunteer- nonprofit advocacy organization. ing as a canvasser. As the registration deadline Across any demographic, however, getting neared, which is a month before Election Day young people to vote is a challenge. That is why in Arizona, she and other teens her age spent grassroots groups like ACE and LUCHA have summer evenings with clipboards and registra- been reaching out to young people through their tion forms in hand, approaching people in the political education initiatives, even before they parking lots of supermarkets and gas stations. are eligible to vote. For example, One Arizona, The gas station “was my best place, actually,” a nonpartisan coalition of organizations that Ortiz said. While people filled up their tanks, formed in the wake of SB 1070, the controver- she had ample time to convince them to register. sial “Show Me Your Papers Law” that encouraged Like many U.S. university students, Ortiz, racial profiling, has collaborated since 2016 with who is now 19, attends classes remotely. In her the Phoenix Union High School District. The spare time, though, she leads her own team of group registers high school students through a young Latinos to register voters. The work looks series of voter education initiatives. very different from 2018, when Ortiz herself was But the pandemic has changed things. After a canvasser whose team focused on face-to-face COVID-19 shut down schools early this spring, interactions. Now, most of their time is spent at some of those opportunities vanished. “We’ve home, running through official lists of eligible had to pivot,” Araceli Villezcas, a program coor- voters and making phone calls. dinator with One Arizona, said. “We completely At their weekly video chats, Ortiz and her missed out on (registering voters at) graduation.” Fhernanda Ortiz, an organizer with the Arizona Center team discuss strategies for keeping people on for Empowerment, is now meeting daily with the team Now that they’ve had a summer to strategize, the phone, roleplaying how calls might go, and she leads from her home in Phoenix. Villezcas and other organizers are preparing

16 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS virtual registration drives through their Youth friend asked her if she wanted to register voters, Araceli Villezcas, a program coordinator for One Power Coalition, communicating with high she decided to try it. “I ended up really loving Arizona, takes a break from work at her home in school classes via videoconference calls. it,” Villezcas said. “Even though I couldn’t vote, Phoenix, Arizona (above left). Volunteers for Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA) prepare for an Using a slide presentation, someone like it felt really good, like we were taking our power early September canvassing event in Tucson (above Villezcas will show teens how to access the back.” That was nearly 10 years ago, and now right). Shawn Burruel displays one of LUCHA’s flyers state’s voter registration site, then walk them getting out the vote is her full-time job. Over at a canvassing event in September (below left). through the process in real time. “By the end of the years, Villezcas has grown accustomed to LUCHA community organizer Faith Ramon dons a mask before canvassing in Tucson, Arizona, the call, the students that are eligible to vote will the election question she is most often asked: Is in early September (below right). have registered,” Villezcas said. Before Election this the year Arizona changes? “We have done Day, organizers will circle back to the newly so much work, and it is not for nothing,” she registered students to make sure they have a always replies. “Arizona has already changed plan to get their ballots in. so much!” For democracy advocates, this work is essen- tial for turning out the vote, especially given the many barriers facing Latino voters. These include age (the median age of Latinos is just 30 compared to 44 for non-Latino whites, and historically, young people haven’t voted in the same numbers as other age groups); poverty (lower-income people who depend on hourly wages can’t always take time off from work to go to the polls); and typically lower education levels (according to the U.S. Census Bureau, individuals without a high school diploma were less likely to vote in 2018). These factors may help explain why less than half of eligible Latino voters in Arizona cast a ballot in the 2016 presidential election. The state also has a long history of disenfranchising communities of color at the ballot box. But orga- nizers are optimistic: “If we can get young Latino voters to vote, they are going to vote the rest of their lives,” Garcia said. For Villezcas, the stakes for families and communities are high. She grew up in Phoenix protesting immigration enforcement with her father, and she remembers having a family member deported. So in high school, when a

OCTOBER 2020 17 Mi Familia Vota canvasser Thomas Vargas registers a man to vote in Northeast Las Vegas in February, before the pandemic hit. The grassroots organization he works for is dedicated to increasing voter participation in states that have large Latino populations, but historically low voter turnout.

PHOTOS | ELECTION 2020 FOR THE FIRST TIME in history, In Nevada, there was an inten- Latino voters will comprise the tional plan, with resources being largest non-white voting bloc in spent in the Latino community, the 2020 election. In Nevada, the according to Chuck Rocha, a polit- Democratic caucuses in February ical consultant and Bernie Sanders’ A turning were the first major test of candi- senior campaign advisor. “When dates’ appeal to Latinos, who make you hire your first staffer, you make point in up 30% of the state’s population. sure they are from the commu- Candidates including Elizabeth nity. And then you start spending Nevada Warren, Joe Biden, Pete Butti- resources over months and months gieg and Bernie Sanders spent a to talk to that demographic about Lessons from the considerable amount of time and your candidate,” he said. “That’s Sanders campaign. resources courting the Latino vote. the perfect storm for having that Though Sanders would go amazing win that you saw.” TEXT AND PHOTOS BY on to lose the Democratic Party’s ROBERTO (BEAR) GUERRA nomination to Joe Biden, he saw a significant victory in Nevada, These photos were made in collab- winning 51% of the Latino vote, oration with the PBS film, Latino thanks to a sustained effort led by Vote: Dispatches from the Battle- Led by Latino campaign workers and Latinos themselves. His campaign ground, directed by Bernardo Ruiz, advisers, the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign spent significant resources is now being seen as a turning point and scheduled to air on local PBS to reach Latino voters with culturally in mobilizing the Latino vote. stations beginning Oct. 6. competent and relevant messaging.

18 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Before the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers like Jazmine Villagomez spent much of their time visiting high school classrooms to educate eligible students about the importance of voting and help them register (above left).

Future Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden carries a picket sign during a Culinary Workers Union strike outside of the Palms Casino in Las Vegas in February. With 60,000 members — 54% of them Latino — it is the state’s largest and most powerful union, and several of the candidates made appearances at the strike in an effort to woo voters (above right).

Latinos and other non-white voting blocs are often viewed by the establishment as if they all share the same set of values. The reality is far more complex. Despite the fact that the majority of Latinos in the U.S. vote Democratic, Donald Trump won 28% of the Latino vote in 2016 — though this number has been disputed. As of August, however, 24% said they plan to vote him this November (right).

Audrey Peral — seen with her son, Izayah — is a grassroots organizer with Make the Road Action. “Although Bernie did drop out of the race, I am very hopeful that here in Nevada we can continue to motivate Latino voters to stay engaged. We are very hopeful that Biden will come to us as a community, to listen to our needs” (below). FACTS & FIGURES IF A DEMOGRAPHER WERE TO DRAW UP deployed. In 1970, the Census Bureau began a profile of eastern Colorado’s Crowley County counting them in their home states, though this using the most recent census data, it would year, soldiers will be considered as residents of appear to be far more diverse and densely popu- the bases where they’re stationed. Because reli- lated than neighboring counties. About 6,000 gious missionaries are counted at their mission people live in the 800-square-mile county’s location, Utah, with its many out-of-state Latter- four small towns, and about 47 percent of the day Saints, usually experiences an 11,000-person population is either Latino, Black or Indigenous, dent in its population count. But this year, due considerably higher than the state as a whole. to COVID-19, the church ordered all missionar- The numbers are accurate, but they are also ies to return before April, meaning they will be distorted by the fact that nearly half of the counted in their home states. populace aren’t truly members of the commu- Prisoners, however, will still be counted nity; they don’t eat at local restaurants, vote in where they’re imprisoned, despite nearly 80,000 local elections or send their children to school. comments urging the Census Bureau to end the That’s because at least 45% of the county’s resi- practice. In 2016, when the federal government dents are incarcerated, either in the Arkansas called for input on possible changes to residence When ‘usual Valley Correctional Facility, a state prison, or criteria, many bemoaned the count’s effects on the Crowley County Correctional Facility, which electoral districts, which are based on census residence’ is operated by private contractor CoreCivic. population counts. The rule currently shifts Owing to the Census Bureau’s “usual residence” political power away from prisoners’ home is a prison rule, however, they are counted as residents of communities in favor of prison communities, Crowley County, rather than the places they which are often rural, white majority and conser- Census method of counting lived prior to incarceration. vative. (See graphic, facing page.) prisoners distorts demographics. Crowley County is an extreme example of this In the 1970s, prison populations were seldom phenomenon, but it’s far from unique. Across large enough relative to the surrounding areas BY JONATHAN THOMPSON the Western United States, population numbers to have a significant impact. But policy changes and demographic statistics are skewed in coun- since the 1980s have greatly expanded the national ties with large numbers of prisoners, giving rural prison population, resulting in a surge of prison counties outsized political power and creating a construction, particularly in rural communities false picture of communities for policymakers. where extractive industries and agriculture are The 1790 law establishing the U.S. census on the wane. On paper, such communities appear states that people should be counted at their to be thriving, diverse places; in reality, they are “usual place of abode,” defined as the place where essentially penal colonies, where a significant they “live and sleep most of the time” on census portion of the populace lives behind bars. day, which is April 1. The rule’s application has Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Prison Policy Initiative, evolved slightly: Members of the military, for Bureau of Justice Statistics. example, were initially counted where they were Infographic design: Luna Anna Archey / HCN

The skyrocketing prison population in America, 1925-2016.

20 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Black DISTRICT White Black White White Black 3% 85% 3% 74% 73% 3% DEMOGRAPHICS,

PRISON INMATES Latino Latino Latino INCLUDED 10% 22% 23% District 60 District 64 District 65 population population population 79,303 78,933 7 7,838 Indigenous 2% Indigenous Indigenous 1% 1%

INCARCERATED Latino Latino Latino Black POPULATION 32% Black 34% Black 36% 21% 22% 19% DEMOGRAPHICS Total Total Total Indigenous Indigenous 9,570 6,393 4,706 Indigenous 4% 3% 2%

White White White 41% 42% 44%

Black White Black DISTRICT Black White White 1% 75% 2% 1% 77% 91% DEMOGRAPHICS, Latino Latino Latino 22% PRISON INMATES Total 7% Total 21% Total 69,732 72,540 73,132 NOT INCLUDED

Indigenous Indigenous Indigenous 2% 1% 1%

65

Census counts tilt political power Lawmakers use the decennial census to divide their states into electoral districts. In 2011, Colo- rado legislators divided the state into 65 state house districts, each with an ideal population as close to 77,372 as possible. Three of those districts, highlighted, have large prison populations, most of whom did not live in the districts prior to being 60 incarcerated. That transfers political clout from the prisoners’ home districts to the non-incarcer- ated population in the prison districts in what is known as “prison gerrymandering.” Last year, Colo- rado lawmakers prohibited the practice, meaning that during the next redistricting, prisoners will be considered residents of their home districts. Colorado House districts 64 California, Nevada and Washington have passed based on the 2010 Census similar laws. However, this will not change the way the Census Bureau counts the prisoners.

The West’s top five penal colonies

68% 73% 75% 79% Not 21% incarcerated 54% 25% Total Total Total Total Total 5,823 6,499 34,895 27% 6,753 7,027 32%

Incarcerated 46%

CROWLEY COUNTY, CO BENT COUNTY, CO LASSEN COUNTY, CA PERSHING COUNTY, NV POWELL COUNTY, MT

OCTOBER 2020 21 REPORTAGE | ELECTION 2020

The politics of protest November’s election will test Portland’s new political environment.

BY CARL SEGERSTROM

Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks to the media while surrounded by protesters in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center in July. Nathan Howard / Getty Images

PORTLAND, OREGON’S politics have been On Election Day, Portland will choose at all.” (Wheeler, whose campaign did not reply shaped in recent months by the city’s reaction between incumbent Mayor Ted Wheeler, who to requests for comment, has said he would not to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis has been slow to act on police reform, and Sarah cede his role to Hardesty before November, but police in May. Ongoing nightly protests since Iannarone, who has pledged to aggressively would revisit the question if re-elected.) Floyd’s death were punctuated by the shooting defund and rethink policing in the city. Teressa Iannarone said in a phone interview that of a Trump supporter and the police shooting Raiford, the founder of Don’t Shoot Portland, is she supports reducing the city police budget by of his alleged killer in September, escalating also running a write-in campaign. Wheeler is $50 million instead of the current $15 million, in tensions over how to prevent further violence. facing a cratering approval rating and calls for line with one of Reimagine Oregon’s proposed This November, Portland residents will cast his resignation for his failure to prevent deadly reforms. “I understand the frustration of people their ballots in a mayoral election that may well violence at protests. He has also been criticized when they see the violence done by our police,” be a referendum on police brutality and racial for walking back some reforms; he has spoken she said. “People in the streets are building bias. The question in Portland, as in commu- against fully defunding the gun violence team, power.” Iannarone would also seek to crimi- nities throughout the West and elsewhere, is for example, citing an uptick in homicides in July. nalize right-wing protesters for inciting riots. whether protests and organizing can bring Meanwhile, Iannarone has called for major This would be a major change from Wheeler’s meaningful political change. changes in policing in Portland. The results approach; during his tenure, police have “There’s nothing different about George of the election will be a good indicator of communicated and at times appeared to coor- Floyd’s murder,” Cameron Whitten, a Portland whether grassroots organizing can bring about dinate with leaders of the far-right group Patriot activist, said in an interview in late August. broader political change. As of early last year, Prayer, according to text messages obtained by “What’s different was the response.” In Portland, Portlanders still largely trusted police, said John Willamette Week. that response has included more than $1.6 Horvick, the political director for the Portland Portland’s mayoral election will show how million in donations to the Black Resilience polling firm DHM Research, citing a 2019 survey far voters are willing to go to see policing change Fund, a group Whitten co-founded to help Black by the firm. If Wheeler loses, it’s a sign that trust in the city. But the power of the movement for Portlanders pay for food, health care and other has faded. “(Wheeler’s) handling of protests and racial justice and police reform will echo beyond necessities. It’s one of many new coalitions and policing would be his downfall,” Horvick said. the mayor’s race, with four of five city council organizations, including Reimagine Oregon and Iannarone is banking on voters wanting seats possibly going to newcomers. “This could the Black Millennial Movement, founded amid a new direction for policing. She’s pledged to be an inflection point for political change in the protests this summer. turn the Portland Police Bureau over to the city,” Horvick said. The biggest question may not These groups have already had some success city’s only current Black commissioner, Jo Ann be who wins the races this November, but, “Do at the policy level. In June, for example, the city Hardesty, who has requested that responsibility. we see new leaders from these organizations and council cut the police budget by $15 million. Portland’s mayor and city commissioners over- movements emerge?” (The police budget is now almost $230 million.) see different departments, and the Police Bureau One such leader could be Candace Avalos, In July, the council approved a ballot initiative currently falls to the mayor, whom Hardesty has who co-founded the Black Millennial Movement giving voters the power to create a new, stron- criticized during the protests. “We need clear and chairs the Citizen Review Committee, a ger citizen police-oversight system authorized and unambiguous leadership to drive us to a citizen police oversight initiative. Whether to subpoena police records and terminate offi- more just future,” she wrote on social media after organizing turns to political power in November, cers for misconduct. The city also ended funding the killing of Aaron Danielson, the pro-Trump the movement for Black lives will persist. “The for transit police and a gun violence reduction demonstrator, in August. “We cannot continue protests have pushed change,” Avalos said. team that advocates argued disproportionately to have a police force that shows up a minute “They’re messy and complex, but the product is targeted Black Portlanders. late because their leadership is not showing up incredible.”

22 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REPORTAGE | ELECTION 2020 FOR ONE NIGHT IN LATE JULY, the mayor of violent rioters, while free-speech advocates Portland, Oregon, joined a protest against police warned of a constitutional crisis, as Oregon brutality outside the downtown federal court- Public Broadcasting verified reports of federal house. Alongside the demonstrators, the mayor, agents detaining demonstrators in unmarked Ted Wheeler, was tear-gassed when federal vans. Federal officers pulled back in late July, law enforcement cracked down on the assem- but the episode tested the limits of domestic bly. “I’m not going to lie — it stings; it’s hard policing by the federal government. In Portland, to breathe,” Wheeler told The New York Times. the impunity with which federal officers can be “This is an egregious overreaction on the part of deployed was on full display — a challenge to Federal boots federal officers. This is flat-out urban warfare.” the ability of the U.S. Congress and the courts Many of the protesters were unsympathetic; to rein in an executive branch that is bending on city streets some jeered or blasted him with leaf blowers and both federal policing norms and constitutional scuffled with his security team. That’s because rights. With Congress gridlocked and courts Wheeler, who is police commissioner as well as Federal law enforcement is omnipresent restrained, the public alone is facing mayor, oversees a department that uses tear gas across the country. Agencies like the Federal down authoritarian tendencies. so often he’s been nicknamed “Tear Gas Ted.” Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement The nightly protests, which were sparked by the Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and BY CARL SEGERSTROM killing of George Floyd in May but were tapering Firearms, and (most controversially, due to its off at the time, took on a new dimension with role in carrying out President Donald Trump’s the arrival of federal law enforcement from the hard-line immigration agenda) Immigration and Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, Customs Enforcement, are expected to enforce including elite militarized Border Patrol officers. federal laws. But their recent arrival at protests Suddenly, Portland was in the national is remarkable. “What’s more unusual is seeing spotlight. Acting Homeland Security Secretary them add agents with the specific purpose of Chad Wolf claimed the city was under siege by crowd and protest control,” said Tung Yin,

Federal officers deploy tear gas and nonlethal munitions while dispersing a crowd of about a thousand protesters in front of Portland’s Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in July. Nathan Howard / Getty Images

OCTOBER 2020 23 of the reforms proposed in the Secret Police Act are already being considered by federal law enforcement after widespread public back- lash. In early August, Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told Congress that law enforcement will stop wearing Army- style uniforms. Despite Cuccinelli’s testimony, however, some federal officers have worn their battle dress uniforms while breaking up demon- strations in Portland. Merkley said he thinks the escalation of federal police was a failed campaign ploy. “They alienate the suburbs because it’s totally un-American,” Merkley said. “I feel positive that they backed off already,” he said, following a deal Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, D, made to add Protesters wave placards at a rally against police brutality and the deployment of federal troops to U.S. cities in Portland, Oregon, in July. Kathryn Elsesser / AFP via Getty Images more state police for crowd control in Portland in exchange for a diminished federal presence. Since the agreement was announced, federal law enforcement has been less visible, but offi- a professor at Lewis and Clark College’s Law party’s presidential candidate. Instead, they’re cers have still engaged with crowds outside the School in Portland, who specializes in national using their majority and parliamentary tactics downtown courthouse and at an Immigration security and terrorism law. to avoid debating laws that curtail federal law and Customs Enforcement building. The deployment in downtown Portland was enforcement. With Congress at a partisan standstill and within the purview of federal law enforcement Absent legislative checks, lawsuits filed in courts unable to react quickly, public pres- officers, who have a “clear cause and mandate” federal courts have secured some protections sure has prevented the expansion of federal to protect federal property, Yin said. But that for legal observers, journalists and medics at law enforcement. The power of public opin- mandate usually falls on the U.S. Marshals Portland protests. Federal agents were issued a ion can only go so far, however, and some Service rather than other agencies — one sign temporary restraining order against detaining or Washington, D.C., analysts has already gamed that what was happening in Portland was differ- targeting members of the press and other legal out grim scenarios that highlight the lack of ent. When Customs and Border Protection observers, or seizing any recordings or equip- checks on executive power, should Trump lose officers started arresting people and dispersing ment from the press, following a lawsuit from the the Electoral College but attempt to hold onto nonviolent protesters with tear gas and nonle- Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties power. thal (but dangerous) munitions, concerns about Union. “We have a Constitution for a reason — Yin, however, thinks the rhetoric around the the constitutionality of their presence grew. the rubber meets the road in the courts,” said federal deployment in Oregon belies the actual Even as tensions escalated, President Donald Kelly Simon, ACLU Oregon’s interim legal direc- scale of what happened. “The significance of Trump openly flirted with deploying troops to tor. “There’s been a waterfall of cases in the face the abuses is unquestioned and impacts some other U.S. cities. of these unconstitutional actions, and that people in downtown, but outside of the imme- Democratic politicians condemned the waterfall is going to keep falling.” diate area the disruptive nature isn’t there,” actions of federal agents, with Sen. Jeff Merkley, Though the legal actions have helped limit Yin said. Opposing sides projected their own D-Ore., leading an ill-fated legislative push to the current abuses of authority, they cannot fears and agendas onto the situation, and their constrain federal law enforcement actions prevent them from happening entirely. “They conclusions don’t reflect the reality for most through an amendment to the defense spend- are reactive because of legal nuances,” Simon Portlanders. “The city isn’t burning, and there’s ing bill. The “No Secret Police in America Act” said. “It’s hard to go to court before something not secret police all over,” Yin said. Besides, he prohibits federal agents from using unmarked happens.” said, absent Trump federalizing the National vehicles and requires that agency and individual In the end, the court of public opinion may Guard — a move that would likely be contested identification be visible on uniforms, and that hold the most sway when it comes to the mobi- by state governors — there aren’t enough federal agencies notify the public about deployment. lization of federal forces on U.S. streets. Some agents to occupy every American city. Senate Republicans blocked debate and a vote. A similar bill in the House of Representatives has yet to be put to a vote. The failure to respond to what happened in Portland is a sign that “the Senate is deeply “There’s been a waterfall of cases in the face broken,” Merkley told High Country News. “I haven’t spoken with anyone who disagrees of these unconstitutional actions, and that with the need for police to have unique identifi- ers.” With the election so close, Merkley thinks waterfall is going to keep falling.” Republicans are unwilling to challenge their

24 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS 50TH ANNIVERSARY High Country News in Robert Redford peruses Tom Bell’s HCN in Lander, the ’70s Wyoming, in the early 1970s. Bruce Hamilton remembers HCN. Wyoming State Journal (now Lander State Journal)

In the 1970s, there was a mad dash to promote U.S. energy independence two weeks and empowered the fledgling regional environmental move- following the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo. Plans were unveiled to transform ment. Wyoming and Montana passed the nation’s toughest strip-mine the Northern Rockies and Northern Great Plains into the Ruhr Valley of regulation, industrial siting laws, severance taxes and sulfur dioxide North America, tapping the region’s abundant coal, oil, gas, uranium and regulations, with one Wyoming legislator arguing that we did not want to oil shale. Activists and conservation groups were still few and far between, end up having “49 states and one smudge.” The AEC’s nuking proposals and High Country News knit them together by sharing information and and the coal slurry pipelines were blocked, and plans to fast-track and hope. There were few environmental journalists back then, and HCN subsidize energy projects were both defeated. The proposed transbasin caught the eye of major newspapers that picked up on our stories and diversions and geothermal leasing next to Yellowstone were blocked. shared them with a national audience. All these victories were won by a coalition of outspent, scrappy local volun- The North Central Power Study proposed a trans- teer conservationists, ranchers, outfitters and sportsmen, business owners, basin diversion to bring water from the Colorado Native Americans and a handful of environmentalists. What brought them River Basin to the water-short Powder River together as a powerful community with a common voice was High Country Basin to exploit its coal resources. There were News. Carrying forward the spirit of its founder, Tom Bell, HCN fearlessly plans to pepper North Dakota with mine-mouth confronted powerful adversaries. One wonders what the region would look coal gasification plants and build a giant coal like today without High Country News to tell this story. slurry pipeline from the Powder River Basin to Arkansas. The Atomic Energy Commission Bruce Hamilton was an HCN editor from 1973 to 1978, and is now national suggested using underground nuclear blasts to policy director of the Sierra Club. produce natural gas from tight geologic forma- tions. As acid rain became a growing problem In celebration of HCN’s 50th birthday, we’re looking back through the in the East, industry pursued the West’s decades, one issue at a time. To scroll through HCN’s full timeline, visit our low-sulfur coal, which could be easily strip- webpage: hcn.org/events/50-years-timeline mined without pesky union labor. Another proposal called for geothermal energy development right up to the boundary of Yellowstone National Park, threatening the world’s most famous geysers. High Country News covered all of this every 50 TAKE US HIGHER From its inception as a rare environmental voice in an ecologically frag- ile region, to its increasingly nuanced coverage of the country’s most rapidly growing and diverse populations, High Country News has, story by story, unveiled the real and complex West behind the beautiful scen- ery. Now we’re raising $10 million to spread the news and launch HCN into the next half-century. Please make a pledge or contribution today: hcn.org/support50more Krystal Quiles / HCN

OCTOBER 2020 25 HCN readers: Funding our work for 50 years THANK YOU. Readers pay for about 75% of what it costs to produce High Country News. You can join our supporters here by donating $50 or more. Mail a check to P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428; call 800-905-1155; or contribute online at hcn.org/support.

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26 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS HCN COMMUNITY Tina Evans | Steamboat Springs, CO Linda Fair | El Prado, NM Bruce Fauskee | Powell, WY Lawrence H. Flournoy | Twin Falls, ID Darrell Floyd | Rancho Palos Verdes, CA Tony & Robyn Floyd | Rochester, MN Reflecting William Foisy | Red Lodge, MT Gerald Folland | Seattle, WA Carolyn Frye | Charleston, WV Sidney Mackenzie Fulop | New York, NY on the 1970s HCN readers: Len Gallagher | Rockville, MD Samuel Gallaher | Denver, CO Karen M. Gastineau | Reno, NV Stephen Gates | Ranchos de Taos, NM “I’d say the most memorable story from the ’70s is in “The summer of 1979, I joined a Forest Service fire Funding our work for 50 years Barbara & Wilbur Gentry | Tijeras, NM Betsy Gits | Santa Fe, NM Tom Bell’s first issue, about ‘the shame’ of a fellow crew in Northern California that brought together Roy Glauthier & Nicole Parker | Costa Mesa, CA rancher poisoning eagles to protect his lambs.” people from around the West and exposed me to an Katie Gooby & Hugh Rieck | Omaha, NE Malcolm & Julie Graham | Sisters, OR —Betsy Marston, Paonia, Colorado interesting mix of personalities and cultural back- Dan Gram | Cuttingsville, VT grounds. It resonates with what HCN is trying to Vern Greco | Kamas, UT Karen Greig | Menlo Park, CA “By the early 1970s, Vietnam raged on, bloodier do these days — expand the way we’re exposed to Sarah Gruen | Ann Arbor, MI than ever. Many civil rights leaders had been as- people with different experiences and backgrounds, Susanne A. Haffner | Clovis, CA sassinated. … Freedom and harmony could only interacting with the Western environment.” Lynne Hagan | Denver, CO Dan Harris | Eden, UT be found outside the system — get out of the pol- —Tim Baker, Eureka, California Michael Harty | Davis, CA luted cities and stifling suburbs, find a place in the Arthur C. Hathaway | Cheney, WA Lois Heefner & Daniel Crump | Aurora, CO country, tend your garden and find beauty in life.” Kristen Henry | Aspen, CO —Doug Morris, Sonoita, Arizona Ron Hill | Batavia, OH Tom & Arline Hinckley | Seattle, WA Nancy Hoffman | Jackson, WY “As a kid in Arizona and Michael Hogan | Beckwourth, CA Utah, I understood the Sharon Hogan | Moab, UT Brad & Kathy Holian | Glorieta, NM West’s issues through Karen Hombs | Lakewood, CO grownups’ conversa- Tim Horner | Havertown, PA tion — that individu- “I was involved in anti-nuke activities in Eugene, Harold Hushbeck | Eugene, OR Jim Jacobs | Lewiston, ID als, corporations and Oregon. During the 1970s, there were major J.L. Jensen Family | Holladay, UT government agencies efforts to develop alternative energy sources. James Johnson & Marilyn Kenney | Sedro Woolley, WA Glen Joslin | Montrose, CO were ruining the West Jimmy Carter even put solar panels on the White Norty & Summers Kalishman | Albuquerque, NM by overuse (includ- House — until Reagan took them off!” Richard Kanner | Salt Lake City, UT Dianne Kelso | Seattle, WA ing grazing and tour- —Tom Lynch, Lincoln, Nebraska Lauri Kemper & Catherine Schoen | ism), mining, logging, South Lake Tahoe, CA building roads. ... All “An HCN story revealed heavy duck kills on waste Barbara Kesel | Oakland, CA Janet King | Berkeley, CA this happened out ponds near Green River, Wyoming. I was a chem- Sue Knight & Glenn Lamb | Portland, OR East, of course, but ical engineer at one of the plants and helped set Tony & Claudia Kutz | Littleton, CO Robert Lee | Pagosa Springs, CO the East was con- up a successful duck rescue and rehabilitation Susan Localio | Port Townsend, WA sidered a lost cause.” program.” Carol Lubell | Colorado Springs, CO —Susannah Abbey, —Jack Schwartz, Paul Mackesey | Kingman, AZ McAfee Fauver Family Fund | Boulder, CO Albuquerque, New Mexico Weatherford, Oklahoma Pat McCabe | Bend, OR Amanda McCreadie | Lafayette, CO Peter C. Mills | Leeds, UT Harry Mitchell | Great Falls, MT Erin Moore | Bellingham, WA WE’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! Please share your memories and favorite HCN stories from Gary T. Moore | Denver, CO Betty Morrow | Albuquerque, NM the 1990s and we may post them here! hcne.ws/my-west Dan Nicholson | Woodland Park, CO Laurie Parkhill | Albuquerque, NM Rodney Peterson | Flagstaff, AZ James & Hensley Peterson | Aspen, CO HCN MOURNS THE PASSING of Norman Harry, a Doris Petrie | Marine on St. Croix, MN Greg Pfeiffer | Ketchum, ID leader of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe. Norm was Marie Pierce | Littleton, CO deeply involved in the historic water agreements Ernie Pintor | Riverside, CA that protected northern Nevada’s Pyramid Lake, David W. Quist | Albany, NY Ken & Emily Ransford | Basalt, CO and fought to end toxic munitions burning at the Norm Rasulis & Rita Kissen | Fort Collins, CO Sierra Army Weapons Depot. At a 2018 lakeside William Reffalt | Albuquerque, NM Marith Reheis | Golden, CO gathering, Norm spoke to HCN about his Great Amy Risch & Nancy Andrews | Ouray, CO Basin homeland. “Norm had the least amount of Andy Robinson | Plainfield, VT pretense of any person I’ve ever met,” writes HCN Steve Rock & Nancy Brink | Berkeley, CA Loria Rolander | Santa Rosa, CA board member Bob Fulkerson. “He could just as Chapman & Jaime Root | Hailey, ID comfortably talk to senators and Congress as he Barbara Rose | Chevy Chase, MD could mix it up with Bernie bros or burners.” Norm Harry and his daughter, Autumn. Kit Miller

OCTOBER 2020 27 HCN COMMUNITY

“Pollution: Growing up in LA in the ’60s and ’70s, “What drew me to HCN was the fresh new en- we’d have over 100 ‘Ozone Alert’ days per year, vironmental reporting for the Rocky Mountains where folks had to stay indoors because of the on the Forest Service and BLM, the forests unhealthy air.” and rangelands. Many so-called “multiple-use” —Mike Newton, Las Vegas, Nevada practices favored only a selected few — grazing, drilling, logging and mining.” “The 1970s was when the working class once —Gerry Snyder, Manhattan, Kansas and for all lost the class war. The decade is when Roosevelt’s New Deal was killed dead.” —Joe Ward, Farmington, NM

Barbara Rothkrug | Corte Madera, CA In memory of Bodhi | Las Vegas, NV Andrew Baumgardner | Scottsdale, AZ Daniel Hawkins | Fairbanks, AK Charles Rumsey | Meeteetse, WY In memory of Ella Bogdanova | Moscow, Russia Kurt & Emily Baumgarten | Bellingham, WA Elvira & Irwin Heit | Bishop, CA Roberts A. L. Sargent Jr. | Montrose, CO In memory of Edwin Brands | Clabasas, CA Jan Beals | Lake George, CO Gretchen Hofmann | Santa Barbara, CA Mary Sasse | Tucson, AZ In memory of Don Cannard & Ed Robertson | Pamela Beason | Bellingham, WA Sally Johnson | Priest River, ID Karen Schindele | Boise, ID Vancouver, WA Collin Beggs | Sandpoint, ID Charlotte Irene Kemp | Vancouver, WA H.J. & Beverly Schoennagel | Pennington, NJ In memory of Fred W. 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Minahan | DuPont, WA Karen Verrill | Lacey, WA In memory of Wyatt Levi Neumann | Bozeman, MT Phillip Browne | Menlo Park, CA Dorothy Montgomery | Tucson, AZ Tom Viola | Berkeley, CA In memory of Adam Roberts | Randle, WA Robert Bryson | Lincoln, NE Elizabeth Moore | Sunnyvale, CA Albert & Kathryn Vogel | Crested Butte, CO In memory of Rod Robinson | Baker City, OR Adrienne Bull | Dillon, MT Chris Moore & Ann Little | Greeley, CO Ingrid Vollnhofer | Santa Fe, NM In memory of Reini & Dotty Ross, above 10,000 Hannah Burleigh | Maple Falls, WA Chris Murray | Quincy, CA Don K. Wall | Ames, IA feet west of longitude 100 | Reno, NV Janet Buschert | Eagle, ID Hans Othmer | Blaine, MN Peter J. Ware | Grand Junction, CO In memory of Philip W. Ryan | Bellvue, CO Philip J. Byrne II & Judy Noerr | Westminster, CO Jo Overton | Philomath, OR Grant R. Weber | Naples, FL In memory of David W. Schaub Harvey E. & Francine Cantor | Creve Coeur, MO Marilyn J. Palmer | Bozeman, MT Meg Weesner | Tucson, AZ In memory of Sofia Sherri | Santa Maria, CA Patrick A. Carr | Arcata, CA Rachael Pendell | Sitka, AK Bob Weirick & Susan Slade | Bozeman, MT In memory of Kareem Shihab | Oakland, CA Stephen Cerny | Reston, VA Leon Peterson | St. George, UT William A. West | Denver, CO In memory of Tessie Siegal & Ruth Radskin Peggy Chaikin | Sedona, AZ Michael Prime | Los Alamos, NM Fred Wheeler | Franktown, CO In memory of Betsy Thibault | Albuquerque, NM Randy Chakerian & Diane Henneberger | Corvallis, OR Lynette Richardson | Grand Junction, CO Don & Donna Whyde | Casper, WY In memory of Lucretia Weed | Lexington, MA Beverly J. Chapman | Leawood, KS Bob & Karen Risch | Ouray, CO Eric & Brandy Wilson | Boise, ID Cristina Abbenante | San Antonio, TX Carole Childs | Pahrump, NV Melisa Raphan & Thomas Rock | Edina, MN John C. Wise | Ashland, OR William Abney | Denver, CO Annette Choszczyk | Paonia, CO Carey M. Scheberle | Pueblo West, CO Arthur Wisehart | Paonia, CO Jim Adams | Boulder, CO Gary & Kay Clausen | Centennial, CO Lee Shannon | Denver, CO Jerry Wright | Nathrop, CO Craig Adams & C.J. Schultz | San Diego, CA Monty & Cheryl Cleeves | Emerald Hills, CA Carolyn Sieg | Flagstaff, AZ William & Suzanne Wuerthele | Denver, CO Bonnie Adamson | Fort Collins, CO Cliff Clusin | Longmont, CO Jeannie Siegler | Huson, MT Anny Zweifel | Williams, OR Ellen Aiken | Boulder, CO Ray R. Coffey | Colorado Springs, CO Bill Sims | Winnemucca, NV Judith Alderson & Daryl Miller | Anchorage, AK Barbralu Cohen | Boulder, CO Gail Smith | Fairplay, CO FRIEND ($50 - $74) Vicki Alexander | San Jose, CA Monique Cole | Boulder, CO Scott L. 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Anderson | Prineville, OR Nicholas Conway | Seattle, WA Roberta Stokes | Houston, TX In honor of the Bates Family | New Castle, CO Cheryl Antonio | Richland, WA Ryan Cook | Portland, OR Samantha Stoughton | Occidental, CA In honor of Harold Case | Nipomo, CA Rick Applegate | Tucson, AZ Don & Marjorie Copeland | Aurora, CO Steven Talbott | Moscow, ID In honor of Dan Cogan | Culver City, CA Jon Archer | Bend, OR Sean Corrigan | Modesto, CA Jason Tennessen | Bloomington, IN In honor of Wayne Hare | Gunnison, CO David Ashby | Phoenix, AZ Rebecca Craven | Bellingham, WA Brian & Mary Thornburgh | San Diego, CA In honor of MMIW | Western U.S., Canada Carol & Ole Ast | Damariscotta, ME Sarah Cromie | Rancho Cordova, CA Lori Thwaite | Bowie, AZ In honor of my ancestors Molly Attell | Carmel, CA Alice Dorshow | Catonsville, MD Larry Trammell | East Wenatchee, WA In honor of David & Suzy Pines | Aspen, CO Logan Aytes | Ryegate, MT Roger & Patricia Essick | Ojai, CA Russell Tyldesley | Santa Fe, NM In honor of Larry & Lesley Rameil | Carbondale, CO Don Bachman & Cathy Cripps | Bozeman, MT Lisa Fitzner | Coeur d’Alene, ID Stephen Vago | Sterling, VA In honor of Frank Reed | Missoula, MT Tim & Catherine Balassie | Saint Charles, IL Stephen Gerdes | Bozeman, MT Russell Waring | Estes Park, CO In honor of Stella Blue Summer | Seattle, WA Ralph & Mary Barhydt | Larkspur, CA Dennis Ghiglieri & Rose Strickland | Reno, NV Dennis & Renae Weder | Magna, UT In honor of Peter Ware | Rosevale, CO Lee R. 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28 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS (continued from page 11) meeting via a video call. “I yelled at the decades-long battle produced legislation would have allowed the its own political strategy — lobby- my son, Rick, ‘Get the champagne! collateral damage: deep mistrust state engineer to re-award the rights ing the state Legislature to change — Get the champagne!’ It was hard to between Nevada’s rural resi- to junior users. “That meant there Nevada water law, then lobbying the believe that it was happening. When dents and the state, especially the was no opportunity for trust. Rural Nevada congressional delegation it’s been that way for so long, you Southern Nevada Water Authority. interests knew there was no way to exempt the project from further never think it will change.” Tom Baker, a fourth-genera- they could take SNWA at its word.” federal environmental review, even tion rancher in the Snake Valley, Pat Mulroy herself, former as it aggressively promoted conser- NEVADA HAS A LONG HISTORY understands as much. “We knew general manager of the Southern vation measures and engineered a of resource extraction, everything we could never let SNWA start at Nevada Water Authority and the low-level intake pump at Lake Mead from gold, to rare earth minerals, to all,” he said recently, “because once architect of the now-failed proj- to secure its pumping capacities. water. And the state is by no means a they started, they would keep going. ect, agreed. Asked what she would The Water Network’s continued regulatory haven for environmental We knew that the amount of water have done differently on the Vegas pressure, applied from multiple causes. But the defeat of the SNWA, they wanted wasn’t actually there. Pipeline, she quickly responded: angles, ultimately paid off. In March, along with other recent data, suggests As soon as they figured that out too, “Nothing we said or did was going the Nevada District Court denied that public opinion around natural they would have to keep expanding. to persuade then. We are city folk. the SNWA’s appeal for a final time — resources, especially water, is chang- Rural Nevada is very lucky that this People in the rural areas don’t blocking it from pumping any water ing. Since 2002, southern Nevada’s project is finished.” trust us.” But then she paused, and in eastern Nevada. After a string of population has increased by 46%, Such criticism is understand- turned the thought. “Look,” she seven straight legal losses, the SNWA but its per capita water usage has able, Simeon Herskovits, the Water said, “these battles are not going announced that it would not appeal decreased 38%, and its consumption Network’s longtime lawyer, said. away. It is one of the divides, and to the Nevada Supreme Court. In of Colorado River water is down 25%. “There is a long history of deceit and there has to be bridges. Every move May, at its Board of Directors meet- The SNWA’s own partnerships up and punitive actions taken by SNWA we made — whether with farmers ing, the Water Authority withdrew down the Colorado River, and the towards rural folks,” he said. As in Utah or ranchers in White Pine all its remaining water applications Great Basin Water Network’s unex- recently as 2019, for example, the County — they said no. That, to me, associated with the project, ending pected partnerships within the state, agency tried to change state laws is the tragedy. This will never change a 31-year battle. point to a larger shift. that protect senior water-rights unless people are willing to talk to Delaine Spilsbury, the Ely Regardless of these changing atti- holders in Nevada, such as farmers one another.” Shoshone leader, watched the board tudes, and the Water Network win, and ranchers in rural counties. The

(continued from page 15) the decision on whether or not the affected fish runs,” said Kate Glover, Alaska politics and Indigenous rights Indian Tribes of Alaska — are USDA will take up the petition for a staff attorney for Earthjustice wafted around her. “Our way of life asking the USDA to move toward a traditional homelands rule. A based in Juneau who has worked is something that isn’t always tran- a framework of “mutual concur- rejection isn’t necessarily the end: on litigation around the Tongass. scribable to English,” Anderson said rence. That concept improves on A new presidential administra- “We need to protect the forest that from her office in Kasaan in August. consultation and better aligns tion would give the 11 tribes a new they depend on.” “My relationship to the Tongass goes with the international standard of opportunity to make their case. With Alaska warming faster so deep that I’m made aware of it “free, prior and informed consent,” The Tongass National Forest than the rest of the United States, every day and in different ways. The which is enshrined in the U.N.’s encompasses a number of it’s getting harder to put up food for salmon that I eat, that comes from Declaration of the Rights of Southeast Alaska Native villages the winter, a matter of survival in the Tongass. The air that I breathe, Indigenous People. With mutual and their ancestral lands, so any places like Kasaan, which has no that comes from the Tongass.” concurrence, “the power dynamic decision about it will affect access grocery store. And the pandemic That depth of connection and is much more even, where the tribe to food sources like salmon, Sitka is only exacerbating the problem, intrinsic value can get lost in the has more of a substantive say, and black-tailed deer and wild berries, creating disruptions in travel and tribal consultation process, espe- the agency has to respond to and as well as cultural resources like food supplies. cially given the way the U.S. views respect that tribal input,” said western red and yellow cedar trees, At 26 years old, Marina Anderson land and water and the life they Monte Mills, director of the Margery which are used for regalia, baskets, has heard nearly all her life about the harbor, Anderson said. Cultural Hunter Brown Indian Law Clinic at totem poles, masks and smoke- possibility that the Tongass could needs — for generations to come the University of Montana, who houses. Yellow cedar is imperiled be logged, with little regard for the — are not quantifiable. “The Forest specializes in public lands and by climate change, and the Tongass tribes who rely on it. Her father Service asked me, ‘How many trees tribal management. “It’s proposing is also a critical carbon sink. “We was a logger and a tribal council do you guys need left for canoes a new relationship for the manage- need (the Tongass) more than ever member, her mother president of and totem poles?’ ” Anderson said. ment of the forest as a whole.” as the climate’s warming and our the Alaska Native Sisterhood, a “They understand that we need old tourism and fishing industries have nonprofit that promotes Indigenous growth: tight grain, beautiful logs, THE FOREST SERVICE’S final deci- been taking a hit, both because rights. Anderson remembers doing straight-grain logs. What they don’t sion on the Tongass exemption of the pandemic and changing her homework at their meetings, as understand is that we don’t have a will come this fall. So, too, could ecosystem conditions that have conversations about sea otter hunts, number for them.”

OCTOBER 2020 29 BOOKS & AUTHORS MARKETPLACE

30 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS OCTOBER 2020 31 32 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS OCTOBER 2020 33 34 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS OCTOBER 2020 35 36 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS OCTOBER 2020 37 ELECTION 2020

Grand Disjunction Public lands are at the center of Trump and Biden’s competing energy goals.

By Paige Blankenbuehler | Photos by Andrew Miller

38 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS The Lunch Loops Trail System on the outskirts of Grand Junction, Colorado, was developed on public land by the Bureau of Land Management and the local mountain bike trail association. About 73% of Mesa County is public land, and about 18% of it is protected from natural resource development.

Grand Disjunction

OCTOBER 2020 39 largest city, the meetings had been on forced hiatus since March, and the women were excited to be together, excited by their shared disobedience. The featured speaker was Denny Behrens, co-chair of the Colorado Stop the Wolf Coalition, but the true star of the day was Lauren Boebert, a feisty MAGA Republican who had just beaten a longtime incumbent, Rep. Scott Tipton, in the Republican primary. Boebert moved from table to table for introductions, handshakes and hugs, a sidearm holstered at her hip. At 33, she was the youngest there by decades. In Rifle, Colorado, where she has lived since the early 2000s, Boebert owns the Shooters Grill, where waitresses in tight flannel shirts and denim serve burgers and steaks with loaded handguns strapped to their hips or thighs. The Grill was shut down in May for repeatedly violating public health orders restricting in-person dining, but the publicity Boebert received from the conflict — and a GoFundMe petition for the Grill that raised thousands of dollars — assisted her bid for Congress. After a lunch of barbecued chicken, potato salad and corn muffins, the group’s president officially began the meeting. She recited a prayer, quoted Abraham Lincoln, and led the room in the Pledge of Allegiance. Then she introduced key people in the room: candidates for the county commission, a representative from President Donald Trump’s Mesa County campaign office, and Boebert. Speaking to the room, Boebert described a conversation she had had with Trump, who called her N JULY 13, IN GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO, a day after after she won. “President Trump the coronavirus pandemic hit a local three-month peak, 45 elderly said that he was watching this from women flouted the state’s “safer-at-home” directive and withstood the very beginning,” Boebert said. temperatures that reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit to meet at the Grand “He said, ‘I knew that something big Vista Hotel for the Mesa County Republican Women’s Luncheon. was going to happen with you, and Officially, the event was meant to spotlight an issue on this year’s now I get to call and congratulate ballot in Colorado, a contentious measure on wolf reintroduction you.’ He said, ‘Every day I’m in the state. But as the women milled about the hotel’s conference fighting these maniacs, but now I room, discarding their masks and embracing each other, the scene have you to fight them with me.’” looked more like a reunion. Although the group, which was founded Her audience laughed and in 1944, typically gathers monthly in Grand Junction, Mesa County’s applauded. Boebert smiled brightly.

40O HIGH COUNTRY NEWS “We are going to win this fight including uranium. In the 1970s, and a more rooted, conservative against the liberal socialist agenda thousands of homeowners were population. The different groups and restore the potential for our warned that their homes had been coexist amid the expansive public community to develop our rich built on non-mediated radioactive land with all its multiple uses: natural resources right here in the sites, marked by gray, sand-like hunting, fishing, hiking, mountain ground in Mesa County,” she said. waste from a defunct uranium mill biking, motorized off-roading and Boebert is partly right; this downtown. skiing, as well as ranching and the election could mean a change in Over the last decade, Grand extraction of oil, gas and coal. how much fossil fuels are extracted Junction has developed a There are nearly 20 outdoor from public lands. Currently, a reputation for outdoor recreation gear stores in the downtown quarter of the crude oil produced and wineries. It is a city defined vicinity alone, reflecting the in the United States comes from by two distinct identities: new myriad approaches to life here. federal lands, and almost three- A wall of flags, hand-painted liberal-leaning outdoor enthusiasts Brochures, maps and pamphlets signs and large campaign quarters of Mesa County is federally billboards on display atop the owned. Public land also accounts banked earthen wall of the Grand for 20% of the country’s total Junction Motor Speedway on greenhouse gas emissions, making the north side of Interstate 70 in Grand Junction, Colorado it key to any national energy (or (facing). climate) policy. If he wins in November, Trump A hand-painted election sign promises to further his agenda of on the south side of Monument Road just a few hundred feet “energy dominance,” which has from the east entrance of the already opened millions of acres Colorado National Monument. of federal land across the Western In the last decade, Mesa County U.S. to energy extraction. But if his has developed a reputation for its outdoor recreation and wineries, opponent, Joseph Biden, wins the and attracted more liberal- presidency, he’ll bring with him the leaning residents (right). most progressive environmental platform ever proposed by a major Rural development in Mesa County, Colorado, below the party candidate. And, as with so Book Cliffs, which stretch west many issues in this election, the into Utah (below). stakes are high for communities that rely on public lands — and nowhere are these themes more amplified than in Grand Junction, the home of the new Bureau of Land Management headquarters.

THERE ARE 1,260 OIL WELL SITES scattered throughout Mesa County. The scene is not apocalyptic; the sites don’t dominate the landscape, and the machinery is tucked away from highways and out of view from the city center. In the rural communities that orbit Grand Junction, pumpjacks, compressors and pipes sit amid a mosaic of farms and ranchland, orchards and winery towns, and numerous biking and hiking trails. Some 63,000 people live in Grand Junction, more than 80% of them white, and around 15% Latino. The city is named for its location at the junction of the Gunnison and Colorado rivers, and has a long history of mining,

OCTOBER 2020 41 at places like Hill People Gear — a Just then, Shrader drove family-run institution that sells up, parked, and walked towards hand-sewn goods and promotes us. Shrader is the head of the gun rights on its website — and Loki Outdoor Recreation Coalition, a Outdoor gear — where an 18-year- local interest group she founded old sales associate told me she was in 2015 to help outdoor recreation “definitely” voting for Biden — tout businesses work together to the many nearby places where one market the area as an international might recreate. About 73% of Mesa destination. County is public land, but only The three of us stood on the 18% of it is protected from natural sandy pavement drinking our resource development. So far, coffee, using the picnic table to Grand Junction has had enough reinforce social distancing. The room for a variety of perspectives trails were empty except for one and competing interests. Since mountain biker, who was climbing Trump took office, however, he has a steep ascent to the edge of the offered more land for oil and gas ridge; we watched, half in awe, half development in his first two years concerned that the rider might as president than Obama did in his collapse from heat exhaustion. entire second term, auctioning off Shrader thought she recognized more than 24 million acres of public the cyclist as a pro she knew. “I was lands. If Trump is re-elected and riding my bike up the monument continues to lease land at the rate the other day, and she lapped me of the last few years, opponents fear going up,” Shrader said, “and she that land that could be managed for lapped me again going down.” recreation, wildlife or conservation Shrader’s cheeks were moist will wind up under the control of with perspiration above a royal energy companies. At best, it will blue bandanna that she pulled remain idle, but be inaccessible down to drink her coffee. She to the public. At worst, it will moved from Prescott, Arizona, to be immediately developed and Grand Junction in 2004 with her directly contribute to greenhouse husband. In addition to running emissions in a world that is already the coalition, Shrader owns a nearing the critical threshold for Junction, a future in which a heart of downtown Junction all the company called Bonsai Design, the climate crisis. sustainable economy is built way to the monument in about 25 which builds adventure courses — Even as Grand Junction has around abundant access to public minutes. hard-core mountain playgrounds changed, the Trump years have lands. Both are relative newcomers Soon, Braden arrived and with ziplines, obstacle courses, widened the political and cultural to the area, but they’ve invested shared some relief: iced black Indiana Jones-type bridges — for divide between liberals and their personal and professional coffee sweetened with agave nectar, resorts, state parks and adventure- conservatives here. Multiple use lives in the Colorado canyon which he poured from a glass recreation companies. She started and the concept of space for all have country. jar into a tin mug for me. Braden it in her basement in 2005, and her given way to sharpened political I waited for them by a picnic is 44, with a friendly smile and a business grew quickly. She bought ideologies and divisiveness, and table in the sweltering heat. Behind dark goatee. He has worked for a building downtown, but outgrew attitudes have hardened around me, a rocky mesa hulked over many conservation organizations that space, too. Just recently, she the pandemic and its restrictions, the system of singletrack trails, and served a stint on a resource broke ground on a new location while protests have arisen extending out from narrow ledges advisory council for the BLM. by the Colorado River — part concerning police brutality. and scarcely visible breaks in the Now, he runs his own firm where of a revitalization project that canyons — the kind of landscape he provides advocacy-for-hire features a water park designed to AFTER I LEFT the Republican whose scale outflanks the mind’s for Western environmental and accommodate low-income families Women’s Luncheon, I drove west ability to absorb it. conservation groups. and encourage them to recreate on to the trailhead of Lunch Loops, The area is managed jointly by “Grand Junction is really the the river. a popular mountain biking trail the Bureau of Land Management perfect place to be for me,” he told Shrader said the Outdoor network just outside Colorado and the city of Grand Junction. me as we drank. “This is a place Recreation Coalition was formed National Monument. I was there The local BLM office, with the help with an economic identity built to grow adventure-based industries to meet Sarah Shrader and Scott of the city and a number of other around cattle and sheep, oil and gas, and the higher quality of life that Braden, two of the town’s most land-use agencies, is extending a uranium mining. But you look out goes with them. “I did that to really prominent conservationists. connector trail all the way to the on places like this, and you see the start talking publicly and visibly Shrader and Braden represent monument. Once it’s finished, a ability of outdoor rec as an industry about the outdoor rec economy an alternate vision for Grand person will be able to bike from the to transform it.” here and to shift focus on primarily

42 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS getting our wealth from the surface place would be the picture of the to be overseen by the BLM. Then, of the land, instead of underneath other economy future. We have a under George W. Bush, millions it,” she said. choice as a community, which one of acres of public land were leased Recently, the president of we want to run towards.” for oil and gas drilling and logging, Colorado Mesa University asked As Shrader drank her iced and “Drill, baby, drill!” became Shrader to develop and head a coffee, Braden continued. “Grand a 2008 Republican campaign new outdoor rec industry program, Junction is an avatar for this slogan. Barack Obama’s tenure which offers students experience choice,” he said. “This is a place over Western public lands was and coursework on adventure that, not too long ago, our picture marked by the implementation of programming, guide services and of our economic future was an oil policies meant to rein in extraction the fundamental accounting and field. Now we have a choice.” and focus on preservation. The finance classes needed to run an result was a record of compromise outdoor recreation business. This FOR DECADES, the Bureau and small gains: He delisted 29 fall is its first semester. Shrader of Land Management has recovered species, but weakened serves as the program’s director struggled to disentangle the two the Endangered Species Act; he and also teaches a few classes. “It contradictory directives that make designated over two dozen national came from the demand of so many up its mission: management of the monuments, more than any other outdoor industry businesses here landscape for conservation, and president, but left other important saying, ‘We need a talented and Downtown Grand Junction is a quota for sustained yield of that public lands unprotected; he skilled workforce,’ ” she said. “I home to more than 20 outdoor landscape’s natural resources. Its promoted tribal sovereignty, gear stores. Hill People Gear really created the program classes promotes gun rights on its direction sways back and forth, but failed to address systemic to be a reflection of what businesses website (left). reflecting the interpretation of inequalities in Indian Country. And need and what businesses want.” the administration currently in even though Obama is considered She envisions training a new Sarah Shrader and Scott Braden charge of the agency’s mandate the first leader to seriously address are two of Grand Junction's workforce for outdoor-recreation prominent conservationists for multiple uses. The idea is that climate change, he also oversaw businesses in what has become an (below). the political appointees who run surges in oil and gas production. $887 billion industry — creating the agency have a responsibility Neil Kornze, who served as stable, green, good-paying jobs to take a balanced approach that BLM director under Obama, told in fields tied to conservation and keeps in mind the public land’s me that the agency acted as crucial landscape preservation. many resources — timber, energy, connective tissue in addressing Shrader views the coming habitat and more — and its various climate change. “As we think about election as a crucial moment for other uses, including recreation, climate solutions and the way that Grand Junction. “When we’re mining and grazing. The BLM’s plants and animals are reacting to talking about the economy, we’re mission, in its own words, is to these really strong changes in our talking about creating a quality of balance these at-odds uses “for the environment, the BLM becomes the life that is bringing people here,” use and enjoyment of present and bridge to other areas of refuge,” he she told me. “Location-neutral future generations.” said. “Questions about sustainable workers, doctors, manufacturing But ever since the BLM was use and conservation are going to companies — they don’t have to formed in 1946 by President Harry be really, really important for the work in the outdoor rec industry, Truman, to act as the guardian of next administration.” but they’re coming here and raising the public lands, it has served as But while the Obama their families here, buying houses, more of a purveyor than a preserver administration’s policies were buying commercial property of land, water and minerals. It was aimed at protecting more public here, paying their employees here established to administer grazing lands from energy development, because of this” — she motioned and mineral rights, and it largely the rollout of those regulations to the rocky mesas surrounding us. benefited ranching interests, was difficult for Bureau of Land Braden and Shrader worry officially combining the General Management field offices across the that Trump’s desire to develop Land Office and the U.S. Grazing West. Jim Cagney, the BLM’s former more natural resources here Service — both of which aided in Northwest district manager, based could significantly alter the the exploitative conquest of the in Grand Junction, told me that the local landscape. “This place — Western United States in the late administration was too ambitious, along with Book Cliffs, Dolores 19th and early 20th centuries. and it overreached. Effective land Basin, Grand Mesa, the national The agency has never found management, he said, happens monument — is the critical its balance. In 1996, President over decades, not over the course infrastructure of our community, if Bill Clinton made history by of a single administration. you’re thinking about creating that designating the 1.7 million- “I don’t want to burst any quality of life,” Braden said. “If an acre Grand Staircase-Escalante environmentalist bubbles or oil well and a surface oil truck is one National Monument in southern anything, but those guys were picture of an economy future, this Utah, the first national monument really calling the shots from up

OCTOBER 2020 43 above,” Cagney said. “My feeling Back in October 2016, I public-land agencies to remove the relocation as a way to dismantle at that time was that we can’t take attended a campaign rally for then- regulatory burdens that blocked the agency outright — “an attempt on this many battles and win them. candidate Trump on the tarmac of projects to develop the “nation’s to divide and conquer and disband We’re going to get more pushback the Grand Junction airport. Ten vast energy resources,” giving the agency and remove it from the than we can handle. Can we slow thousand people waited more agencies 45 days to review ongoing power center of decision-making,” down and bring this along at a than four hours outside the arena. projects. he told me. sustainable pace? The Obama The scene was rowdy, joyous, like According to an analysis by Trump has also refused to administration would have none an energized fan base at a music The New York Times, in the past hire a BLM director. Instead, he of that.” festival. Although public lands few years, Trump has reversed 68 selected William Perry Pendley, a Cagney, who worked for the account for nearly three-quarters environmental rules; more than controversial conservative with BLM for three decades, retired of the land inside Mesa County’s 30 similar rollbacks are currently a history of lobbying to transfer before Trump became president. limits, a place known as the gateway in progress. Many of these moves public lands to local private “It’s plainly obvious that (the Trump to the canyonlands and the home of impact the BLM. In April 2017, interests, to serve as acting director administration’s) public-lands Colorado’s first national monument, Trump signed an executive order in 2019. Trump sidestepped the approach is rooted in the denial Trump never mentioned them to review all designations under nomination process altogether of any science that conflicts with explicitly. But he knew that energy the Antiquities Act; later that year, until this June, when he formally their extractive agenda,” Cagney development would resonate with he shrank the boundaries of both nominated Pendley to lead the said. “I’ve spent my lifetime his constituency. “We’re going Grand Staircase-Escalante and agency in an official capacity. After trying to maintain a balanced, to unleash American energy, Bears Ears national monuments. months of outrage and opposition unbiased approach to public lands. including shale, oil, natural gas, In December 2017, he scrapped a — notably from vulnerable I think both parties overplay their clean coal,” he told the crowd. “That rule that required mines to prove Western politicians like Colorado’s hand, and the ever-increasing means getting rid of job-killing that they could reclaim their mines; Republican senator, Cory Gardner, pendulum swings associated with regulations that are unnecessary. ... a month later, he ordered Interior who is up for re-election this year — administration changes are making We’re going to put the miners right to expedite rural broadband Trump withdrew the nomination. management of the public lands here in Colorado back to work. projects on public lands. Trump But Pendley still serves as acting unaffordable and impractical.” “We are going to dominate,” he has exempted pipelines that cross director, working out of the new said, as his audience whistled and international borders, such as headquarters in Grand Junction. SINCE HIS INAUGURATION whooped. the Keystone XL project, from Conservation organizations are in 2017, Trump has worked hard to Trump won Mesa County by environmental review. In April 2019, lobbying to have him fired outright, undo Obama’s legacy, especially 64% — 28 points more than Clinton. he lifted an Obama-era moratorium though that appears unlikely when it comes to the environment. And so began what critics call his on new coal leases on public lands; to happen before November’s I interviewed more than a dozen “frontal assault” on regulation and that summer, he nixed a ban on election. former Interior Department public-lands protections, and a drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National By most accounts, Trump employees, BLM directors and staff, chaotic remaking of the Bureau of Wildlife Refuge. has been successful in advancing conservationists, environmentalists Land Management. Just one week Under Trump’s watch, the his agenda of energy dominance. and Washington insiders, and by into his presidency, in his second Interior Department has moved Though American energy most accounts, Trump has narrowed executive order, Trump took aim at the Bureau of Land Management production set records during the vision of the beleaguered the National Environmental Policy headquarters from Washington, Obama’s tenure, according to agency far more than any of his Act — the bedrock environmental D.C., where the agency had ready the Interior Department, the predecessors. “Energy dominance legislation that safeguards access to decision-makers and revenue from federal oil and gas is not the same thing as multiple public land and resources for politicians, to Grand Junction. The output in 2019 was nearly $12 use,” Nada Culver, vice president future generations by requiring controversial relocation has been billion — double that produced of public lands and senior policy thorough environmental impact criticized as a blatant attempt to during Obama’s last year in office. counsel for the National Audubon analyses — and ordered expedited deliberately shed institutional The courts — and the uncertain Society, told me. “It’s a very, very environmental reviews for high- knowledge and talent. Since the economic situation — have acted to radical tug on the balancing act. priority infrastructure projects. A announcement, the agency has temper abrupt change, but Trump There is a thumb on the scale.” few months later, Trump ordered lost half of the staff who were slated has done everything in his power for relocation. The department to clear the way for development. defends the move, citing cost “Four more years of Trump savings and claiming it will be means a steady stream of oil and gas “We’re going to unleash better able to meet its mission lease sales and locking in leases and by placing “leadership closer to fossil fuel emissions when we can’t American energy, including the resource and lands that BLM afford it,” Kate Kelly, public-lands manages.” The Government director for the Center for American shale, oil, natural gas, clean Accountability Office, however, Progress, an advocacy organization has determined that Interior for progressive policies, told me. coal. ... We are going to officials lied about the reasons “We will continue to see every acre for the move. Cagney, the former that could potentially be leased, dominate.” Northwest District manager, sees leased, and the hollowing out of the

44 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS agencies that are there to protect impacts, the U.S. must decrease these landscapes.” its total emissions by 25% by 2025. “I want young climate In late summer, Trump revealed We are not on track to meet this one of his most extreme changes yet: benchmark, but reducing the 20% activists, young people Amid the widespread economic of emissions that occur on public crisis due to the coronavirus lands would significantly help everywhere, to know: I see you. pandemic, his administration the nation to limit catastrophic finalized a “top-to-bottom overhaul” ripple effects from the worsening I hear you. I understand the of NEPA. Trump’s change would crisis. The fight between Biden and fast-track infrastructure and Trump is really a fight over keeping urgency, and together result in shorter reviews and fossil fuels in the ground. a narrower comment process, we can get this done.” thereby limiting what the public is IN LATE OCTOBER 2019, Joe allowed to scrutinize. Already, 17 Biden traveled to Raleigh, North environmental groups have sued. Carolina, for a campaign rally. deepened the doubts of the When Biden released his “(NEPA) is a tool of democracy, a There, he encountered Lily Levin, Sunrise Movement, which, since initial climate plan in June 2019, it tool for the people,” Kym Hunter, a an 18-year-old climate activist its creation in 2017, has become fell far below what youth climate senior attorney with the Southern with the Sunrise Movement, an an influential force in Democratic activists demanded, focusing more Environmental Law Center, the firm international coalition of more politics. The group was an early on market-driven changes rather representing the groups, wrote in the than 10,000 young people fighting champion of the Green New than federal mandates to limit suit. “We’re not going to stand idly for immediate action on climate Deal, which was initially mocked emissions. It shied away from a by while the Trump administration change and skyrocketing inequality. by politicians, including Nancy carbon tax, for example, instead eviscerates it.” “I’m Lily from Sunrise,” she said as Pelosi, as being overly ambitious favoring policies that finance And Trump has promised Biden turned around to face her. and impractical. By 2019, however, emission-cutting efforts by the to continue what he started if “I’m terrified for our future. Since 16 of the Democrats running for private sector. That December, the he’s re-elected in November. He you’ve reversed and are now taking president had endorsed it. Biden Sunrise Movement gave Biden an remains skeptical of climate super PAC money — ” was not among them. “F” rating, deriding his plan for its change, calling the crisis a “make- Biden held up a phone, pointed In the few years since its lack of specificity and saying it fell believe problem,” a “big scam” and it toward himself and Levin, and founding, the Sunrise Movement far short of promises made by other a “Chinese hoax.” In countering took a selfie, as Levin continued: has grown from a small group of presidential candidates, such as Trump on the issue, Biden has been “How can we trust that you’re not progressive young people — its Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth able to make his most compelling fighting for the people profiting off oldest leader is 33 years old — to Warren. Polls from the time showed argument for the presidency yet: climate change?” a highly visible organization that that Biden lost more than three- “There’s no more consequential “Look at my record, child,” draws thousands of volunteers quarters of voters younger than 45. challenge that we must meet in the Biden responded. and members across the country. “We don’t have to beat around the next decade than the onrushing A few days earlier, Levin had The group’s stamp of approval bush,” one Sunrise member said. climate crisis,” he said at a virtual learned that Biden was walking has become perhaps the single “Young people ain’t voting for Joe town hall in July. “Left unchecked, back an earlier promise that his most important hurdle to clear Biden.” it is literally an existential threat campaign would not accept dark for Democratic candidates, and But in the months following to the planet and our very survival. money from super PACS — interest Biden has stumbled in his efforts the primaries, Biden abandoned That’s not up for dispute, Mr. groups that influence politics to achieve it. his moderation in favor of a bolder, President. When Mr. Trump thinks without regulations to require Biden, who has been in politics more progressive climate stance, of climate change, the only word he disclosures of the identities of their for 47 years, has a checkered largely as a result of pressure from can muster is ‘hoax.’ When I think donors. “This lack of transparency environmental record, as Levin the Sunrise Movement. In late about climate change, the word I is a problem, because young people likely knew, and has long been July, Biden released a radically think of is ‘jobs’ — green jobs and a simply cannot trust that politicians considered a moderate on energy. progressive, $2 trillion climate plan, green future.” — who have kicked the can down Throughout his years as a senator the most ambitious blueprint ever Right now, and for the the road for decades when it comes and his tenure in the Obama released by a major party nominee foreseeable future, the public to climate change — will be on our administration, Biden has always and the culmination of months of lands are the battleground for the side, unless we also know that aimed for the middle ground collaborating with members of the climate crisis. The United States is they’re not taking a single dollar on climate policies, espousing a Sunrise Movement. the world’s largest emitter of fossil from the merchants of our planet’s diversified energy portfolio that Just days after releasing fuels after China, meaning that the destruction,” Levin wrote in an keeps “bridge fuels” such as natural his plan, Biden held a virtual country must play an outsized role op-ed for BuzzFeed News a few days gas. As recently as this August, fundraiser. “I want young climate to curb the climate crisis. In order to after the encounter. Biden assured some constituents activists, young people everywhere, keep rising temperatures within the Biden has struggled to capture that fracking would continue under to know: I see you,” he said. “I hear critical 2 degrees Celsius threshold the support of the progressive arm his administration — although he you. I understand the urgency, and that scientists deem necessary to of the Democratic constituency, has stated that he would not allow together we can get this done.” prevent the worst environmental and his exchange with Levin it on public lands. In his plan, Biden calls for the

OCTOBER 2020 45 complete elimination of carbon Despite their initial centering environmental justice,” nomination, Biden responded on pollution by 2035. He also promises reservations, many environmental Varshini Prakash, co-founder and Twitter. “William Perry Pendley has to rejoin the international Paris organizations and climate activists executive director of the group, told no business working at BLM and climate accord, which Trump have been won over by Biden’s the Washington Post. I’m happy to see his nomination withdrew the U.S. from in 2017. new approach. In August, the In August, Biden named to lead it withdrawn,” Biden wrote. While Trump continues to dismiss Sierra Club officially endorsed Kamala Harris as his running mate “In a Biden administration, folks the science behind climate him. The Sunrise Movement, — a signal to his constituency that who spend their careers selling off change, Biden’s plan uses climate which agonized publicly over the she would bring accountability public lands won’t get anywhere science and the projections of choice, said that though it would to the promises he has made near being tapped to protect them.” the Intergovernmental Panel on not formally endorse Biden — regarding climate action. Harris, Climate Change as a foundation. the group has an endorsement who has a strong record of FOLDED NEATLY on the Biden’s plan will focus on investing process with specific benchmarks, environmental action, made it countertop that divides Tye Hess’s in renewable energy development including requiring candidates to a centerpiece of her own failed kitchen from his living room was and creating incentives for industry sign a “no fossil-fuel money pledge,” run for the presidency. She and a large navy flag decorated with to invest in energy-efficient cars, in which lawmakers promise not to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the stars and a bright red stripe and homes and commercial buildings. accept money from PACs or from progressive congresswoman from the declaration: TRUMP 2020, NO Biden has pledged to end new oil, donors in the extractive energy New York, introduced the Climate MORE BULLSHIT. It was a sunny gas and coal leases on public land sector — it would campaign for him. Equity Act, which would establish afternoon in July in Redlands, a and has said he will emphasize “What I’ve seen in the last six to an executive team and an Office suburb of Grand Junction. The more solar and wind energy eight weeks is a pretty big transition of Climate and Environmental streets and culs-de-sac in Hess’ projects on BLM land. in upping his ambition and Justice Accountability to police neighborhood are named after the impacts of environmental the local wine scene; Hess lives on legislation on low-income and Bordeaux Court. communities of color. Harris “How many flags have you sold has also said that she wants to this week?” I asked. He exhaled eliminate the filibuster — which loudly. “Quite a few, probably like is a tool most often used for hyper- 20,” he said. partisan gridlock — in order to clear Hess has short brown hair, the way for the passage of the Green bright blue eyes and a small gap New Deal, a progressive package between his teeth. He was wearing that aims to mitigate the worse a Pink Floyd T-shirt and casually impacts of climate change while sipped a ruby grapefruit White transforming the U.S. economy Claw as we spoke. toward equity, employment and “On Friday, I’m getting much justice in the country’s workforce. more in, and I’m just going to start If Biden is elected, his handing them out to people saying nomination to lead the Interior that if they want to donate to buy Department and the Bureau of more, they can,” he told me. “I feel Land Management will have great guilty, ya know?” He laughed. “It’s significance for his climate agenda. just something I believe in, so I Potential nominees include don’t feel like charging for them. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat I’ve made plenty of money off these, from Arizona and the chairman and I can afford to give some away. of the House Natural Resources But if somebody wants to donate Committee; Ken Salazar, Obama’s money to buy another one, I’ll do Interior secretary; and John Podesta, that. Just keep it going.” a lifelong Democratic operator and Hess typically sells the flags former chief of staff under Obama, for $25. When I met him, he had who is credited with envisioning that already sold more than 200, hand- era’s most memorable conservation delivering each one, and setting and environmental achievements, up the deals through social media. such as the Climate Action Plan Previously, he worked for a coal and an economic recovery bill that mine, overseeing methane flaring invested $90 billion in renewable outside of Paonia, Colorado, and energy and energy efficiency. then working as an independent Biden has signaled that he’d contractor, installing granite name a preservation-minded countertops, carpet and tile. He Interior secretary. When Trump supplements his income by withdrew William Perry Pendley’s running his own e-commerce

46 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS store. He views his flags project and dirt-bike the rocky plateaus and in the town of De Beque, down as a personal campaign trail. “We canyons, the same lands that have the road from Rifle, the home of have to do everything we can to get been such a large part of his own life. Shooters Grill. him re-elected,” he said. Hess, who “I get real upset when people For weeks, Grand Junction was is 42, only registered to vote a few dump their trash out there, because shrouded in wildfire smoke. Since months before we met, and this that’s going to get them shut down we first talked, Hess and his fiancée election will be his first. quicker than anything probably,” had moved to the rural edges of the We were waiting for a customer he said. He thought Trump was the county. From Hess’ home, he could named Eric Farr, who was picking country’s best hope for a return to barely make out the rows of peach up today’s flag. Hess threw away the aspects of his childhood he values: trees just beyond his property line White Claw, opened his refrigerator, “constitutional values,” he said, under the dense sepia-toned sky. In and grabbed a Coors Light. The “what the founding fathers tried to a photo he sent me, the sun burned doorbell rang. instill into our country.” He told me an electric scarlet; he told me he Farr seemed surprised to see that he wants his children — he has was worried for the wildlife. me, even though Hess had told him two children under 7 and a baby on I imagined what someone a reporter would be at the handoff. the way — to experience the same standing in the new headquarters “You’re not some super liberal lady freedom that he feels he grew up of the BLM might be able to see. who is going to spin everything I say, with. “I’m not a Democrat, I’m not When I visited the office in July, are you?” he asked. I promised him a Republican,” Farr told me. “I’m the sky was bright blue and clear, that I wouldn’t. “OK,” he said. a patriot. Trump is like our savior with mere scraps of clouds offering Farr was born in the mid-1980s basically. He’s our only hope.” a respite from the heat. From its at St. Mary’s Medical Center, in “Yep, I just barely registered (to north-facing windows, you could Grand Junction. He grew up riding vote) because of Trump and seeing see the Grand Valley Off-Highway a Yamaha YZ125 motorbike, honing these idiots,” Hess said, referring Vehicle Area, where Farr loves a talent and a love for motocross to the social justice activists to ride. To the southeast was the on the dips and yaws of the town’s protesting in Grand Junction place known as Lunch Loops, the bluffs, managed for motorized following the killing of George mountain biking area that Shrader use by the BLM. He had traveled Floyd by police in Minneapolis. can pedal to in just minutes from widely, competing professionally “I’ve had plenty of disagreements, her front door, and the entrance to on his Yamaha and sponsored by and I never seen such rude Colorado National Monument. Jägermeister. “I have been all over comments (on social media). Then Due to the pandemic, most the world, but never wanted to live you fight back and they play the employees were telecommuting, anywhere else,” he told me. “I just victim.” and very few people were there, save want to keep the public lands open, Hess took another Coors out for a few construction workers fixing like the BLM area. It’s just free and of the refrigerator and handed it to electrical issues on the third floor. open space. I just want to keep a lot Farr. “It’s just ignorance and — like They were from Shaw Construction, of it open for the motorcycles and you said — victim mentality,” Farr one of the BLM’s neighbors in the side-by-sides.” said to Hess, taking the beer. building. The BLM also shares the As we talked about the land, I tried to steer the conversation building with Chevron, the Colorado I asked Farr what he thought of back to the Interior Department, Oil and Gas Association, Laramie Trump’s refusal to fill the position but they wanted to focus on what Energy and ProStar Geocorp, a of director at the BLM. “With they called the gall of the “radical mapping company. In the middle of everything going on, I haven’t socialist left.” Though both a move, the BLM headquarters was seen anything about (Trump’s) Hess and Farr’s lives have been a scene in flux, a place still trying to approach to public lands,” Farr intimately connected to the public realize itself. replied, referring to the pandemic lands in the Grand Junction area, Along the halls of the BLM’s and the ongoing demonstrations the fate of those landscapes has office, large murals of iconic for Black lives. “It seems like Trump Tye Hess and one of the flags not factored into their calculus for scenery — Colorado National is about letting the states do what he's been selling through an November’s election. Monument, Black Canyon of e-commerce store. Hess is 42, they feel is best with their public and this will be the first election About a week later, a lightning the Gunnison — leaned against lands. So I think he’s got enough on he's voted in (top, center). bolt 18 miles north of Grand bare walls, waiting to be hung. his plate that he doesn’t really have Junction ignited the Pine Gulch I remembered talking to Hess Eric Farr on a dune in the BLM- time. As important as public lands Fire, a blaze that became the largest about his city as a new nexus for managed North Fruita Desert 18 are, there are a million other things Road OHV area (above). wildfire in Colorado’s history. By public-lands management, and that are just as important that he’s early September, it had burned asking him what he thought about focused on.” A trail runner crosses the high around 140,000 acres, mostly on moving the BLM headquarters desert on the Lunch Loops, I asked whether Farr was which connects to downtown BLM land. It pushed northwest, from Washington, D.C., to Grand worried about future generations Grand Junction via a new bike forcing evacuations for residents Junction. Hess just laughed: “The being able to mountain bike, e-bike and walking path (facing). who live next to abandoned wells BLM headquarters is here?”

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OCTOBER 2020 49 50 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS ESSAY

Leaving ‘Cancer Alley’ On recognizing the violence of environmental racism.

BY ADAM MAHONEY

One of the several oil refineries in Wilmington, California, seen in close proximity residential houses. Peter Bennett/Citizen of the Planet

ONE EVENING MORE THAN a decade ago, resort, but my city, with a population that is mice crawling into teachers’ bags during class, I was 7 years old, lying on the floor, tossing my 97% people of color, has five local refineries, having a nurse on campus only once a week Nerf football up in the air, when I saw bright the largest concentration in all of California. — how, one Halloween, the refinery above our flames through our apartment window. The These refineries — owned by BP, ConocoPhil- campus painted its 3.3 million-gallon oil tank light came from a fiery plume, expanding from lips, Tesoro and Valero — have helped turn my to resemble a jack-o’-lantern. By the time I left, about a mile away from our home in Wilming- home into “Cancer Alley.” Young children and I understood myself as a young adult navigat- ton, California, painting the sky a burnt orange. adults here die of lung and throat cancer at a ing an academic world defined by wealth and My mom bolted through our home, on edge and rate up to three times higher than the surround- privilege. frightened. She thought the community college, ing areas, according to a report by Communities My hometown has helped me recognize where my older brother was sitting in an evening for a Better Environment. Wilmington is also the state-sanctioned environmental racism class, was on fire. We turned on the local news, home to the nation’s third-largest oil field and directed at folks who look like me. And, in turn, finding nothing. In a panic, we left for his school. hundreds of active oil wells — all wedged in by its problems alienated me from my home, push- As my mom drove, I tried to calm myself down three freeways and the nation’s largest trading ing me to hide my connection to it and eventu- by rubbing at the stain of a melted crayon in the hub. ally leave. I can’t help but think that this was backseat of her old Honda. For most of my life, I was embarrassed deliberate — that my community was chosen As we got closer, we were relieved to see the to say I lived here. All I knew about my home to be a chemical waste ground, partly so I’d feel flames weren’t coming from his school’s make- was poverty, so I concealed my connection to ashamed to stay there. Wilmington, by design, shift campus — modular trailers set up on old it. My mother enrolled me in school in Carson, expels opportunities. I was always encouraged tennis courts. Days later, we learned that the about 5 miles from Wilmington, because she to leave, because escape signified success. local ConocoPhillips refinery had undertaken felt more comfortable with me there. In my Now, however, I wonder exactly who a major flaring event to dispose of excess gas. sixth grade gym class, I remember hiding my was defining these markers. Now that I have Though we lived less than a mile from the refin- paper as I filled in my address on a contact form. begun my career in Chicago, I feel guilty not ery, we were never warned about the flaring. Throughout high school, I was reluctant to claim being in Wilmington. My home still lacks the Only later did we learn that dangerous amounts my home, because of the reaction I received. resources people need in order to live without of dozens of chemicals were being released into During October of my senior year, Amherst the constant threat of a slow, painful death — our air. College in Massachusetts flew me out to entice where children can breathe easily and play I grew up in a community defined by bright me to attend, and only then was I finally able to sports without developing asthma, bronchitis, neon signs and strings of palm trees stretching understand the slow, often invisible, violence respiratory infections or lung damage — where out toward smokestacks. Fifteen minutes south committed against my community — to see people can live free of suffocating violence of my family home, multimillion dollar homes that it was more than just embarrassing; it was without healing. sprawled along the Pacific Ocean. My rich neigh- physically and intellectually damaging. During I don’t know when — or if — I’ll go back to bors got private beaches; I got the toxic Port of the four-day trip, some of my peers from across Wilmington. But I know that in my hometown, Los Angeles, which has continuously failed to the country said they thought I was lying to fit and too many places like it, environmental meet water-quality standards. the stereotypical traumatic narrative for people racism is never a thing of the past: It’s happen- Wilmington doesn’t have a single five-star of color when I described my experiences: the ing now, every day, as I live and breathe.

OCTOBER 2020 51 ELECTION 2020

Lauren Crow / HCN

IN RESPONSE TO the COVID-19 the application. For people on the pandemic, South Dakota encour- Pine Ridge Reservation, where aged voters to use absentee ballots businesses are often few and far in the June 3 presidential primary between, producing a photocopy, election. Although the state A ‘second wave’ or even finding a notary public, can received almost 89,000 absentee pose significant barriers to apply- ballots in the primaries — five times of Indigenous ing for absentee ballots. the number of absentee ballots In many cases, this is deliber- cast in the June 2016 primaries — voter suppression ate. Strategies designed to suppress and voting increased across the the Indigenous vote range from state, voter turnout on the Pine A new book explains the barriers to the ballot box. having too few polling stations Ridge Reservation remained low, on reservations, to gerrymander- at approximately 10%. As author BY JESSICA DOUGLAS ing to dilute the impact of tribal Jean Schroedel explains in her new votes, to failing to adhere to the book, Voting in Indian Country: The minority language requirement of View from the Trenches, barriers to the Voting Rights Act. Indigenous Indigenous voting are nothing new. voters sometimes have to travel up Absentee ballots may only make to 200 miles to even reach a voter them worse. registration site or polling location. Though the 1924 Indian Citi- be difficult for tribal commu- required to mail in a ballot applica- Indigenous voters also face zenship Act granted citizenship to nities. During South Dakota’s tion accompanied by a photocopy blatant voter discrimination from all Indigenous people born within 2020 primary election, any voter of an acceptable photo ID card, or local governments; many have had the United States, voting can still who used an absentee ballot was else have a public officer notarize to engage in costly and burdensome

52 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS lawsuits and court battles simply to gain access to the ballot box. In 2014 in South Dakota, the Jack- son County Commission refused “Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part to place a satellite polling station in Wanblee, on the Pine Ridge of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, a surge of laws Reservation, in time for the 2014 midterms. The county eventu- has made it even more difficult to vote ally installed the station, but only after four enrolled members of the in Indian Country.” Oglala Sioux Tribe sued. Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, a surge of laws has made it even more difficult to vote in Indian Country. In 2016, for example, Arizona passed a so-called “ballot harvesting” law that made it a felony for third parties to mail in or drop off another person’s these postal provider offices are who is elected, sees your name, At most, Native people are 2% ballot. But many rural Indigenous at gas stations or mini-marts; it’s and knows how you voted because of the population, so time and voters rely on other people, includ- a little add-on to whatever the they are required to verify that your time again I have people say to ing workers from voter assistance normal business is. signature on the ballot matches the me, “Why bother? Why bother organizations, to collect and turn Well, that’s a big challenge. one they have on file. Are you going working with this group? They in their absentee ballots. If you can’t get mail at home, that to send in your vote that you’re are not important.” Well, every- Voting in Indian Country means having to find transporta- voting against that person? If you one should be important! chronicles the history of Indige- tion to pick up your mail. You might don’t trust that election official, When you don’t have a seat nous voter suppression through have to pay for a post office box, but if you think that person might be at the table and people don’t have ethnographic data, oral histories there may not be enough. I’ve seen racist, if you don’t think your votes to pay attention to you, whatever and case studies, weaving together some places where the cost for a are going to count, why are you issue and needs you have can a comprehensive record of the post office box is as high as about going to bother to vote? easily be ignored. And when you centuries-long battle for voting $140 a year. For someone who may add in the kind of geographic rights. Recently, High Country News be experiencing economic hard- In your book, you mentioned a isolation of reservations, there talked to Schroedel about her new ships, that’s a big burden. “second wave” of voting rights is a tendency to completely book, the unique challenges tribes For residents of the Arizona abuses for Indigenous voters. ignore their needs, even if they face at the ballot box, and why portion of the Navajo Nation, there What is that second wave? are issues that are supposed to be voting rights abuses are still prev- are a total of 26 locations where The best way to explain it is to do handled via treaty rights. alent in Indian Country. people theoretically can receive a comparison with the first wave. (Voting) is important in the This interview has been edited mail. This consists of 11 post offices First-wave voting rights abuses big elections, but also the small for length and clarity. and 15 postal provider offices where are when a state has a law that elections that people will feel in non-U.S. Postal Service contractors says “Indians can’t vote” or “Black their everyday lives, such as who You write a lot about the provide limited mail service. For people cannot vote.” Second- is elected to county government. complexities involved in voting comparison, West Virginia, which wave voting rights abuses dilute, In San Juan County, which is on by mail in Indian Country. With has a land mass slightly less than suppress and abridge the right to the Utah side of the Navajo Reser- many states considering a vote- the Navajo Nation, has 725 post vote. These are laws that make it vation, they just finally gained a by-mail system this year due to offices and postal provider sites. harder to vote, such as having to majority of Indigenous people on the coronavirus pandemic, how obtain approved identification the county commission. This is do you see this impacting Native Why is political trust important when (election) officials refuse the county that includes Bears communities? for voting by mail to work in tribal to accept tribal IDs as valid iden- Ears (National Monument). Many Native American reserva- communities? tification, or having to travel a Now, two out of the three people tions have what’s called non-stan- If you have experienced racism long distance to polling locations on the commission are opposed dard mail service, meaning you in the white parts of your state or because those near you were to President Trump’s actions in don’t get mail at home. You may county, you might be very, very closed. They don’t forbid (voting). regard to (shrinking) Bear’s Ears. have to go to either a post office hesitant about voting by mail. They don’t deny it. They just make If you don’t exercise the or what’s called a postal provider There’s a tremendous amount of it harder for some populations. opportunity to have a voice, you office. The latter is very common discretion when an individual won’t have a seat at the table that on reservations, and it’s not a votes by mail. In South Dakota, Given all these challenges, why is it makes the decisions concerning full-service post office. It’s not your ballot goes to an election important for Indigenous commu- you and your people. These things postal employees. You will find office, and the county auditor, nities to keep fighting for the vote? are incredibly important.

OCTOBER 2020 53 REVIEW ment: People loathe the new mansions and condos, the weekend visitors and city hunters. At the same time, the book questions the idea of the rugged, individualistic, white rural West- erner. In Ruthie’s world, under-employed men hunt for food and dream of a day when soci- ety collapses and the rich must “beg for help,” even as their own world slowly implodes, from Gentrification poverty and climate change — and supernatural forces. comes to rural The reviled wealthy newcomers’ arrival forces the locals to consider their own situation Montana more critically. Most families in the novel strug- gle with unemployment, inadequate nutrition A new novel explores the fraught and poverty, but those privations don’t become history of the Bitterroot Valley. enraging until rich city people appear, flaunt- ing their wealth, buying up land and changing BY GABINO IGLESIAS local customs — bringing gigantic automatic weapons to places where locals occasionally still hunt with bow and arrow. “They keep taking

things from me. My pond, my woods, my view. Michelle Urra / HCN It’s likely they won’t stop until there’s nothing left,” Rutherford, Ruthie’s father, tells her. She reminds him that she’s still there. Rutherford Terry is the only man Rutherford trusts with his later gets arrested for destroying construction daughter, but the friendship is weighed down by equipment. symbolism: At times, the novel seems to equate IN THE FOOTHILLS of the Sapphire Moun- The sheriff tells Rutherford, “I know you see gentrification with the trauma of genocide. tains in southwestern Montana, elk are bleed- this property and all the woods around it and Even as working-class families find them- ing. Some are dead. Others are still alive, torn most everything else in this valley as yours, but selves displaced by rich vacationers, they by bullets, their panicked eyes searching the it’s not. And when these big-money people come contend with the environmental damage of the landscape for a way to escape. This bloodbath in, they don’t take kindly to their investments industries that they followed to the region. They was caused by hunters: A few are locals who getting fucked with.” also distrust the research lab on the edge of town. understand the “communion between hunter Loskutoff challenges his white characters’ Loskutoff embodies these scattered, complex and prey,” but others are “weekenders in from ideas about land rights. Ruthie’s neighbors threats in the form of a nightmarish creature Missoula” who have no respect for the land. clearly feel that they own the landscape their that Ruthie encounters in the woods. Instead of rifles, they carry military-grade AKs ancestors stole from Indigenous peoples. They One day while she’s out with her dog, Ruthie and bump-stocked AR-15s. Ruthie Fear, the blame the newer residents for many things, but sees a tall, feathered, headless creature that protagonist of Maxim Loskutoff’s eponymous when an earthquake hits, the locals attribute moves toward the creek on insect-like legs. The novel, belongs to the first group, but the carnage it to an “ancient Native American curse” that apparition becomes an obsession. Years later, around her keeps her from focusing; when she Loskutoff invents, “Charlo’s curse,” named after she explains to a lover how she hated it, how the finally shoots, she has no idea whether her bullet Chief Charlo, who led Salish resistance to their bizarre creature made her think of “pollution has found its target. Ruthie thinks the weekend- forced removal from the Bitterroot Valley by the and all the horrible things” she was learning ers are ruining everything, changing the land- U.S. government. Rutherford rolls his eyes at about in school. As ever more people move to scape and forever altering life in Montana’s his neighbors’ ignorance, even as his Salish best town, Ruthie wonders if the creature she saw Bitterroot Valley. In his gritty debut novel, friend, Terry, mocks him for being upset at the long ago was “a premonition, a ghost image of Loskutoff explores the dissolution of a mill town newcomers for fencing off the land that Ruther- what was to come,” even as she questions her whose mill has shuttered, ultimately suggesting ford’s family has used for generations. own instinctive hatred of something she can’t that in this destruction may be a tortured form Yet Loskutoff also perpetuates a romantic understand. In an unexpectedly apocalyptic of renewal. idea of the disappeared Native American, writ- ending, Ruthie finds evidence that the creature Ruthie is white, an only child who lives ing about Salish peoples in the same way that he wasn’t a single aberration, but rather a symbol of with her father in a dilapidated trailer. On the describes disappeared wildlife, equating Indige- how far her town truly is from the idyllic wilder- surface, Ruthie Fear is a coming-of-age story that nous genocide with environmental degradation. ness she imagines it to be. explores poverty, violence and death. But below “The valley’s inhabitants had done everything that surface lies an examination of the shifting they could to domesticate its hillsides and river- demographics of western Montana, where a banks. Fence it into squares and pave roads largely white, working-class community is being between those squares. Slaughter the bears and Ruthie Fear displaced by tourists and second homeowners. wolves and mountain lions and bison. Drive out Maxim Loskutoff Gentrification is at the core of this novel, and the Salish. Nail crosses to the hilltops. Yet still 304 pages, hardcover: $26.95 Loskutoff shows how it aggravates class resent- the wildness encroached,” Loskutoff writes. W.W. Norton, 2020.

54 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REVIEW the respect for human dignity and compas- sion? Lucia approaches the question only in the second appendix, where she recounts her research methods. She writes that when she solicited feedback from the individuals she quoted (many of whom are considered expert Is spiritual growth possible yogis or spiritual gurus), many had “vitriolic reactions.” They objected to Lucia’s acknowl- without confronting whiteness? edgment of their “white privilege, practices of white possessivism, and their existence within In White Utopias, cultural appropriation at festivals like Burning Man the structural context of white supremacy,” goes under the microscope. interpreting it as a personal assault or accusa- tion of racism. Lucia found these responses disappoint- BY JORDANA ROSENFELD ing — she had “somewhat naively” assumed that many of her subjects had already done the “internal social justice work” of divesting from their whiteness. Clearly, people can believe they IN A GEODESIC DOME in Joshua Tree, Cali- facilitate spiritual transformation. But do the are achieving spiritual growth without interro- fornia, hundreds of festival-goers assemble for participants ever confront their own investment gating the privileges of white supremacy, but a workshop on prānāyāma, an ancient Hindu in whiteness? If not, how profound could their real transformation is limited by the refusal to breathing practice. Amid an acoustic blend of transformations be? fully examine the implications of one’s place in drumming, chanting and birdsong, a work- Lucia’s sharp analysis and enthusiasm for the status quo. By relegating these unpleasant shop leader, flanked by “guardians” dressed historical and theoretical context dominates the confrontations to the appendix, Lucia allows in white, instructs participants to drop into book, but she also takes readers inside the festi- readers — presumably people who are, like her, their heart centers and prepare to be “intro- val scene, with its yogis, prayer beads, ceremo- involved in higher education, itself a predomi- duced to the place inside (themselves) that is nial pipes, chakra wands, crystals and the other nantly white field — to extend to her subjects the pure love.” Many of the participants take these spiritual bricolage common to many “alterna- same benefit of the doubt. Lucia’s book suffers Hinduism-derived activities seriously. But tive” or New Age spaces. We accompany her into for not recognizing that unlearning whiteness most, if not all, identify as “spiritual but not catharsis workshops where strangers gather to and white supremacy is not just justice work; it religious” (SBNR) — a phrase-turned-demo- scream, sob and collapse, and experience the is also spiritual work. graphic category that describes the growing awe-struck silence of the conflagration of Burn- Lucia remains optimistic that these retreats number of Americans who are critical of orga- ing Man’s Temple. help their white participants develop the skills to nized religion but believe in something greater Lucia grounds the book in the long tradi- confront white supremacy, giving them the abil- than themselves. And these festival-goers have tion of “Americans turn(ing) to religious others ity to engage with spiritual, mental and physical something else in common: Nearly everyone at when dissatisfied with the dominant culture.” discomfort and to make empathetic connections Bhakti Fest, a multi-day annual celebration of From the Transcendentalist movement of the with strangers. But these festivals — with their spiritual transformation through Indian cultural 1840s to the 1960s counterculture and New Age reliance on non-Western spiritual traditions practices, is white. in the ’90s, the stresses of modern life have — allow white participants to think they’ve To research her insightful new book White pushed Americans to experiment with amal- already addressed their own role in perpetuat- Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of Transfor- gams of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism and ing systemic racism, and that they’ve succeeded mational Festivals, Amanda Lucia, a Califor- Indigenous religions, attracted by what Lucia in “unlearning whiteness” by the time they pack nia-based scholar of religion who specializes terms “religious exoticism.” But while many of up their yoga mats. This kind of denial happens in global Hinduism, immersed herself in SBNR the seekers believe they’re reckoning with their in all predominantly white spaces, far beyond communities in California, Hawaii, Australia, own whiteness, Lucia argues that their adop- spiritual desert getaways. Lucia models a way of Nevada and elsewhere, attending 23 different tion of nonwhite religious and cultural identities seeing the embedded logic of whiteness in social “transformational festivals” — large-scale gather- reveals a sense of entitlement — a tendency to spaces, an analysis her white readers would do ings of people attempting to create enlightened rely on “racialized others as unsullied, exotic, well to apply to their own settings — whether selves within imagined utopian worlds. The premodern subjects whose cultural products they’re attempting to create a utopia or not. festivals emphasize certain qualities — kind- supply practical, therapeutic tools.” Religious ness, inclusion, mindfulness and the rejection exoticism not only assumes whiteness as a of conventional understandings of the self — default, but exploits and erases the legitimate though they vary in the details of their utopic representatives of marginalized spiritual tradi- White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of visions (and in their acceptance of corporate tions. Transformational Festivals sponsorships). But Lucia, who attends without White Utopias shows how deeply whiteness Amanda J. Lucia hiding her role as a researcher, is struck by their undergirds these gatherings of spiritual seekers. 320 pages, softcover: $29.95 overwhelming whiteness. What makes them, as But isn’t whiteness, as a learned investment in University of California Press, Lucia writes, such “safe spaces of white ethnic one group’s inherent superiority, an obstacle to 2020. homogeneity”? The festivals are intended to spiritual transformation itself — particularly

OCTOBER 2020 55 ESSAY | COVID-19

Lessons from homeschool Don’t be terrified. Be ready.

BY KHADIJA QUEEN

IT’S FALL, AND SCHOOLS and we can socialize and teach mentioned a disciplinary model It might be a story written by all the are only partly open, while many our children, even in, maybe espe- akin to restorative justice, where students in your neighborhood via parents are still working from home. cially in, a pandemic. To make problematic behavior is discussed a shared online document. Be sure, And that means the possibility of things easier — ha — I’ve made not behind closed doors, but in in planning those fun activities, not homeschooling. If you’re hearing a a list of nine lessons folks can front of and with a group. No one to overburden a single person with horror movie soundtrack right now, adapt from homeschool practices, heaps shame upon the victim, and hosting and organizing; share your that’s OK! Teaching from home can even if you don’t actually take the the person causing harm is given time, labor and expertise evenly. be a terrifying undertaking. But as plunge and homeschool outright. the space to explain themselves and a veteran homeschooler with a son deliver an honest apology rooted in 6. ACCEPT COMPLEXITY. We who’s using the pandemic isolation 1. CULTIVATE CURIOSITY. Is acknowledgment and action. each have our own ways of learn- to learn animation and practice his your student all over the place with ing and absorbing new material. photography in Colorado, I’m offer- their interests? Allow your child to 4. WHAT ABOUT STUDENTS Some of us find ease and comfort ing some advice that may be useful. investigate everything! Alterna- with learning differences, who need in numbers and scientific inquiry. The main lesson: Customize for tively, if they’re more apathetic, specialized support? That is where Others find delight in creative and the circumstances. As parents, we your student can use this time to we as a society fail the most, in my imaginative pursuits. Still others can encourage, celebrate, support figure out what they’re interested opinion. My son, who has multiple learn kinetically — feeling closest and fund with our tax dollars an in and/or are good at. When my disabilities, found more encour- to their highest selves when danc- educational system that operates son was in high school, we looked agement and engagement from ing, running or playing basketball. flexibly, instead of a one-size-fits- into photography and game design. online teachers and peers in his Local and state parks can be a free all approach. He was a rather apathetic teenager, interest areas than he did in public or low-cost way to take advantage The idea that one size fits all but with those two subjects, he said: school. Neither model was perfect, of outdoor activity; maybe your sounds absurd when you think “Well, I don’t hate it.” I could work but learning at his own pace, and middle-schoolers can invent new about it. Customization is avail- with that! Listening to your child focusing on subjects that kept his sports in an open field, or your able for everything from jewelry to is extremely important, and giving interest, brought him much more elementary students can practice Spotify channels, from Instagram them many options and then push- joy. It gave him the chance to learn drawing pictures of your neigh- ads to license plates, from mudflaps ing them toward those options can to express himself clearly, and to borhood mule deer. Then they can on pickup trucks to toss pillows for spark a lifelong interest; my son is decide what he wanted to do with write about the process, encour- your sofa. The only thing I own still involved in both. his life. aging critical thinking. Add a that’s labeled “One Size Fits All” is research element for high-school- the striped summer caftan I wear 2. DEVELOP DEPTH. Does your 5. COLLABORATE WISELY. Are ers as another way to acknowledge around the house on laundry day. student tend to have a singular you lucky enough to have neighbors, complexity. Building on single So why do we find the idea that focus on one or two topics? Now family and friends you can depend experiences deepens understand- education is customizable so shock- is the perfect time to let them dive on? You can do what some colleges ing. ing, so easy to reject or ridicule? deeply into one or two subjects — (not to mention cetaceans) do, and Too many myths confound to focus. This can ease anxiety and organize pods to share resources 7. INDULGE CREATIVE PURSUITS. our thinking about homeschool- boost comprehension. with others. Avoid collaborating Education as … indulgence? YES. ing: It’s too easy, kids just run wild, with folks who might undermine Art, writing, film, music and theater they don’t get enough socializa- 3. RECONSIDER DISCIPLINE. safety or educational goals. Collab- are part of education. They teach tion, they don’t learn enough. But What about disobedience or disrup- oration might mean leading video- critical thinking, empathy, dexter- there’s nothing easy about being tive behavior? The crime-and-pun- conference science experiments, or ity and joy. What if kids actually stuck at home with school-aged ishment model doesn’t work for socially distant backyard garden- enjoyed educating themselves? children, as we all now know. Still, homeschooling. Many of the home- ing, or botany lessons with small- What if it’s actually practical right kids should run wild sometimes, schooled students I spoke with group trips to the botanical gardens. now to advocate for enjoyment,

56 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS since everything else is so chaotic? now, success might mean staying the coronavirus won’t disappear Imagine that. alive, and helping to keep others anytime soon. With data showing alive. And that is enough. Learn- that children and younger adults 8. EMBRACE SOLITUDE. This ing at home gives us the freedom contribute greatly to community may sting for the extroverts to become more acquainted with spread of the virus, responsible among us, but solitude really isn’t what we love. And, right now, that parents must — out of necessity that terrible. It invites self-reflec- might be the most practical thing and citizenship, if not kindness tion. And, perhaps, if socializa- we can do: to get to know our clos- and consideration for others — Learning at tion included more self-reflection, est company, to develop ourselves educate themselves about the we’d have a kinder, more aware in positive ways and to make stay- safest way to keep their children home gives us citizenry. We have an opportunity ing at home more bearable. engaged in learning at home when at this moment to prioritize safety in-person class isn’t possible. the freedom to and care, and we can extend that BEING WILLING to learn from The West is a unique frontier. prioritization to educational struc- what we don’t understand is a We’ve had the pioneering myths of become more tures — especially in cases where valuable life skill. And isn’t that the region drilled into us, pioneer- people are toxic, and with bullying what education is meant to do, ing that unfortunately involved acquainted at epidemic levels in public schools. give us the knowledge and skills more harm than education. Our Getting to know yourself away from we need to navigate life success- current circumstances, however, with what we other people can be one of the most fully? In a world where care and invite us to truly embrace a spirit valuable experiences life offers. community-building are more of discovery, to energize and love. Why shouldn’t we allow our chil- necessary than ever, we can use adapt. We don’t have to reinvent dren that luxury and safety? this opportunity to model what the wheel with our children’s that success can mean. education. We can look to custom- 9. IMAGINE THE FUTURE. We are Throughout Colorado, we’ve ized ways of learning and creat- in the middle of a global disaster. had summer camp outbreaks ing community, and use tools that Cut these kids, and yourselves, of COVID-19, defiantly packed make sense for our current real- some slack. Instead of worry- restaurants, and a persistent ity. Acknowledging and learning ing about whether they’ll “fall refusal by many residents to main- from established knowledge and behind,” recognize that many, tain physical distance or wear face solutions, I suspect, might hold if not most of us, have already coverings properly and consis- lessons not just for students, but fallen behind. We can reframe tently. Our behavior as a region also for parents-as-teachers, and our language of success. Right and as a country ensures that for the culture at large.

The author and her son, T. Amari, work together in the dining room at their home in Colorado. T. Amari & Roberto (Bear) Guerra / HCN

OCTOBER 2020 57 Heard Around the West Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write [email protected] or tag photos #heardaroundthewest on Instagram.

BY BETSY MARSTON

THE WEST online gun people,” reports Vice, Every day, about 20 carloads of over something most gun owners befuddled-looking travelers strag- take for granted: “trigger disci- gle down the roads of a small rural pline.” It’s generally drilled into subdivision on the Idaho-Wyo- gun owners: Keep your finger off the ming border, much to the locals’ trigger (unless you mean to shoot), annoyance. “Is this Yellowstone and never point a gun at some- National Park?” the drivers plain- one — unless, of course, you mean tively ask. Unfortunately, no; to shoot. This sounds eminently Yellowstone is about two hours reasonable, though one online away. It seems one bad app can group of extreme gun aficionados spoil a whole getaway. If you hit the disagrees. At “Loaded Guns Pointed red pin instead of the green pine at (B)enis,” members delight in tree icon on your iPhone’s Apple posting pictures and videos of Maps app, reports the Jackson Hole themselves pointing loaded weap- News & Guide, you will be sorry: ons at their manly parts. In May, “Hundreds of people are going to Vice predicted that one of these Yellowstone and finding out it’s a days a weapon was bound to go off, mailbox,” said Suzanne Arden, a and on Aug. 11, that’s exactly what resident. Her neighbor, Carol Greg- happened: “A man posted a video ory, tried to help by painting some of himself pointing a loaded 1911 rocks yellow at the subdivision’s handgun at his junk. There’s a brief entrance and posting a sign tell- pause before the gun discharges.” ing tourists they’d been led astray. Sienna Gonzales / HCN The unidentified San Diego-area Gregory said she’d notified Apple man kept posting throughout the of the problem several times, but bloody aftermath — though the the app remained unchanged in THE NATION not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, posts have since been removed. late August. She did succeed in The books we love tend to stay with it is also a crime,” adding that noth- “God’s caliber (.45) went through my getting a sympathetic response us. Many of us remember what ing in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act scrotum, mattress, box spring and from a customer rep named Vivian: lawyer Atticus Finch told his daugh- permitted this radical change, which floor,” the man explained, though “I completely get where you’re ter, Scout, in Harper Lee’s novel, To would have hugely benefited the oil it managed to miss the copy of the coming from,” Vivian said. “That’s Kill a Mockingbird. “It’s a sin to kill a companies that pay the bulk of the U.S. Constitution clearly visible on something I definitely would want mockingbird,” he said. When Scout fines for violating the act, reports the the floor. At first he thought he’d to get taken care of. If I was going wondered why, her neighbor cited Washington Post. Under the admin- merely grazed his testicles, but a to Yellowstone, I would not want to the birds’ innocence and beauty: istration’s interpretation, BP could visit to the hospital revealed both show up at your doorstep.” Mean- “They don’t do one thing but sing have dodged responsibility for the an entrance and an exit wound. while, Eugenio Bautista from their hearts out for us.” The book’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill Presumably chastened, and (we Chicago was among the many moral message resonated in the by claiming it never really meant to hope) wearing a discreet bandage hapless wanderers this summer mind of a federal judge in New York dump 4.9 million barrels of oil into over his nether regions, the man who found himself in a housing when she recently struck down a the Gulf of Mexico. It was just one of went to work the next day, accord- development somewhere outside Trump administration rule change those things, we suppose. The disas- ing to a “Loaded Guns Pointed at (B) of Driggs, Idaho. There he found that allowed individuals and corpo- ter was one of the biggest in Amer- enis” administrator. His suffering pleasant homes, but not a geyser rations to kill untold numbers of ican history, killing an estimated 1 was not in vain: The next day, the in sight — not even a friendly elk birds. All the offenders had to do was million birds. group proudly declared him “king” or bison to photograph. “This is show they had not intentionally set of its site, saying he had learned not it,” he concluded. “And now we out to kill the animals. U.S. District CALIFORNIA his lesson and didn’t deserve “the wasted two hours already.” Judge Valerie E. Caproni wrote, “It is There is a “beef raging between entire world calling him an idiot.”

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#IAM THE WEST JOVAN JACKSON Founder Better Minds, Better Communities Las Vegas, Nevada

When I got out of prison, I was really trying to find meaning again. I felt like less of a citizen without the right to vote. This will be the first year that formerly incarcerated (people) are able to vote. Me, being incarcerated, I have been focused on the district attorney race, city council, because a lot of these individuals only get into office with votes of 800 people. So I know if I’m able to influence incarcerated people to vote, it could make a change because their voice hasn’t been heard. We had a barbecue, music, hip-hop, mass liberation. We got people registered to vote. —Eileen Guo Mikayla Whitmore / HCN Whitmore Mikayla

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