Where the West Is Moving — and Why CONTENTS
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SPECIAL ISSUE High Country ForN people whoews care about the West August 20, 2018 | $5 | Vol. 50 No. 14 | www.hcn.org 14 50 No. | $5 Vol. August 20, 2018 Where the West is Moving — and Why CONTENTS High Country News EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PUBLISHER Where the West is Moving Paul Larmer EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brian Calvert — and Why ART DIRECTOR Cindy Wehling DIGITAL EDITOR FEATURES Gretchen King ASSOCIATE EDITORS 14 Tristan Ahtone Heat Casualties Maya L. Kapoor California’s farmworkers face increased dangers Kate Schimel Tay Wiles as the climate warms By Ruxandra Guidi ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Luna Anna Archey 24 Estranged in America ASSISTANT EDITORS Emily Benson In rural Colorado, an immigrant family faces Paige Blankenbuehler an uncertain future By Sarah Tory Anna V. Smith WRITERS ON THE RANGE EDITOR Betsy Marston INSIDE COPY EDITOR Diane Sylvain 4 Is it time for assisted migration? As climate change CONTRIBUTING EDITORS overtakes species, scientists seek safer ground Graham Brewer Cally Carswell 6 The record-breaking journey of Deer 255 Scientists Ruxandra Guidi Michelle Nijhuis are uncovering new secrets in mule deer migrations Jodi Peterson Jonathan Thompson 8 St. George sprawl In southwestern Utah, unceasing CORRESPONDENTS growth means increased tension Krista Langlois, Sarah Tory, Joshua Zaffos 10 Truckers against trafficking An unlikely alliance EDITORIAL FELLOWS Carl Segerstrom is fighting a pervasive human rights abuse Jessica Kutz EDITORIAL INTERN Elena Saavedra Buckley DEPARTMENTS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Laurie Milford 3 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG PHILANTHROPY ADVISOR Alyssa Pinkerton 12 THE HCN COMMUNITY Research Fund, Dear Friends DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT Christine List 81 EDUCATION MARKETPLACE DIGITAL MARKETER Chris King 30 MARKETPLACE EVENTS & BUSINESS PARTNER COORDINATOR Laura Dixon 33 BOOKS WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPER The House of Broken Angels By Luis Alberto Urrea Eric Strebel IT MANAGER Reviewed by Sarah Tory Alan Wells IT SUPPORT TECHNICIAN 43 PERSPECTIVE Josh McIntire This land is their land, too ACCOUNTANT Erica Howard Immigrants aren’t the real threat to public lands ACCOUNTS ASSISTANT Analysis by Ruxandra Guidi Mary Zachman CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER 36 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston Christie Cantrell CUSTOMER SERVICE Kathy Martinez (Circ. Contributors Systems Administrator), Rebecca Hemer, Debra Muzikar, Pam Peters, Doris Teel, Tammy York GRANTWRITER Janet Reasoner [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] FOUNDER Tom Bell BOARD OF DIRECTORS John Belkin, Colo. Beth Conover, Colo. Jay Dean, Calif. Bob Fulkerson, Nev. Emily Benson is an Ruxandra Guidi is Maya L. Kapoor is Jessica Kutz is an Carl Segerstrom is Sarah Tory is a Anastasia Greene, Wash. assistant editor at a contributing editor an associate editor at editorial fellow at an editorial fellow at correspondent for Wayne Hare, Colo. High Country News. at HCN. She writes High Country News. High Country News. High Country News. HCN. She writes from Laura Helmuth, Md. from Los Angeles, Carbondale, Colorado. John Heyneman, Wyo. @erbenson1 @kapoor_ml @jkutzie @carlschirps Osvel Hinojosa, Mexico California. @tory_sarah Samaria Jaffe, Calif. @homelandsprod Nicole Lampe, Ore. Marla Painter, N.M. Bryan Pollard, Ark. Raynelle Rino, Calif. High Country News is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) independent 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post Estee Rivera Murdock, Colo. media organization that covers the issues that define the offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to High Country News, Rick Tallman, Colo. High American West. Its mission is to inform and inspire people Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles Luis Torres, N.M. to act on behalf of the region’s diverse natural and human in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. Andy Wiessner, Colo. Country communities. (ISSN/0191/5657) is published bi-weekly, 22 Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: Florence Williams, D.C. News times a year, by High Country News, 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, CO 800-905-1155 | hcn.org 2 High Country News August 20, 2018 From our website: HCN.ORG Editor’s note Photos The myth of American progress In 1872, a publisher named George Crofutt hired a German-born, Brooklyn-based painter to illustrate his Western World magazine. John Gast’s American Progress was painted just seven years after the end of the Civil War and 24 years after t Farmworkers harvest the U.S. government acquired 525,000 square peaches at one of miles of “the West” from Mexico in the Treaty Abundant Harvest Organics’ orchards in of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It depicts an angelic Kingsburg, California, Columbia (the feminine spirit of the United States) floating over the where, as temperatures continent, carrying a book in one hand and a string of telegraph wire continue rising, in the other, the vanguard of an advancing empire of trains, coaches, An air tanker flies over a vineyard in the path awareness about heat- wagons, farmers, miners and horsemen. A bear, a herd of bison and of the Mendocino Complex Fire in Lakeport, related illness is critical numerous Indigenous Americans all flee in terror at her approach California. JOSH EDelson/AFP/GETTY Images to farmworker safety. R OBERTO (BEAR) GUERRA FOR — all things wild and other to the minds of the 19th-century Anglo- HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Americans now barreling in from the East. The painting has become ‘We’re stretched to our limits’ one of the most enduring images of Manifest Destiny. Vast and relentless wildfires are ravaging California t Lucia Gaspar at Today, most of us understand the dangers of Manifest Destiny and beyond, and more ignite each week. From the work in Ortega Middle and the fantasy it represented to would-be Westerners. But consider, Carr Fire, which has now killed at least seven people, School’s special needs too, the myth of progress to massive blazes in Idaho and Oregon, over 100 large fires have covered more than 1 million acres classroom in Alamosa, it encouraged. Nearly 150 more than the year-to-date average. The forecast isn’t Colorado. She got the years after Gast’s painting job after she became looking good, either. According to Ed Delgado of the eligible for the program was printed, we know that National Interagency Fire Center, the West Coast will called Deferred Action the coal smoke those trains likely continue getting hit. California, the Northern for Childhood Arrivals, spewed helped heat up the Rockies and the Great Basin will see above-average known as DACA. The planet’s atmosphere, as fire conditions in the months to come, according to Trump administration would the cars, trucks and Delgado’s predictions, with higher temperatures and discontinued the buses that replaced the lower moisture. ELENA SaaVEDRA BUCKLEY program, but courts MORE: hcne.ws/region-ablaze have ordered that it be coaches and wagons. One restarted. might regard those farmers, COREY ROBINSON FOR American Progress, 1872. miners and other “pioneers” HIGH COUNTRY NEWS SOUrce: Prints AND Photographs DIVISION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. as the shock troops of an American policy of This business is based on displacement and supremacy, one that ruthlessly tore other people human suffering. from their land, homes and families. And those telegraph lines? Those were the precursor of the “Information Age,” the promise of a “ —Roberto de Jesús González, speaking future never delivered, that now bind us with hateful tweets, endless in a legislative hearing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, about his experience” being held emails, and a “social” platform for Russian agents to sow discontent for three months in New Mexico’s Otero across our democratic system. County Processing Center, one of the private And so, for this issue’s cover, we’ve decided to give American detention centers used by Immigration and Progress an update. The issue itself is dedicated to the idea Customs Enforcement to hold asylum-seekers On the cover of migration and the myriad ways it continues to reshape the and other non-criminal detainees. JESSICA American West — through the movement of people, plants, KUTZ MORE: hcne.ws/investigating-ICE animals and ideas. The West may not represent progress, but it does represent constant flux. And these days, the biggest driver of change is not the desire for progress, but the challenge of a chaotic climate and the movement of people, from communities ignored or Percent of the power provided by Arizona50 utilities that must come from renewable Original maligned by Gast’s work. The West is becoming a place of heat and illustration sources by 2030, if a clean energy ballot measure by Grace cruelty, where families are torn apart and farmworkers wither in the passes. Russell, fields, even as researchers desperately seek ways to save diminishing inspired by ecosystems. It doesn’t have to be, however. A better West is up John Gast’s to us. $1,200 American After commissioning Gast’s painting, Crofutt described it as Amount Arizona Public Service says customers’ Progress. a “beautiful and charming” depiction of America, floatingW est, annual utility bills will go up, if it passes. “bearing on her forehead the ‘Star of Empire,’ ” and bringing with Environmental groups dispute the figure. her the means to “flash intelligence throughout the land.” If only In Arizona, a renewable energy ballot measure she’d brought decency, instead of progress. has stoked a legal battle between utilities and —Brian Calvert, editor-in-chief environmentalists. The measure would up the state’s commitment to carbon-free energy, but it doesn’t include nuclear in the equation. Some Complete access to subscriber-only content wonder whether that spells the shutdown of HCN’s website hcn.org | Digital edition hcne.ws/digi-5014 the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the country’s largest power producer. @highcountrynews Printed on recycled paper. ELENA SaaVEDRA BUCKLEY MORE: hcne.ws/arizona-nuclear www.hcn.org High Country News 3 Is it time for assisted migration? As climate change overtakes species, scientists seek safer ground BY MAYA L.