A Mega-Dairy Comes to the Desert

A MEGA-DAIRY COMES TO THE DESERT

Extreme heat Seeing beyond the A new era of Vol. 53 / August 2021 No. 8 • hcn.org vs. the grid Skagit River dams Indigenous-led TV EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PUBLISHER Greg Hanscom EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jennifer Sahn ART DIRECTOR Cindy Wehling FEATURES DIRECTOR McKenna Stayner MANAGING DIGITAL EDITOR Gretchen King ASSOCIATE EDITORS Emily Benson, Paige Blankenbuehler, Bryan Pollard (Interim) PHOTO EDITOR Roberto (Bear) Guerra ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Luna Anna Archey ASSISTANT EDITORS Jessica Kutz, Anna V. Smith EDITOR AT LARGE Betsy Marston COPY EDITOR Diane Sylvain CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Elena Saavedra Buckley, Ruxandra Guidi, Michelle Nijhuis, Jonathan Thompson, Christine Trudeau CORRESPONDENTS Nick Bowlin, Leah Sottile, Sarah Tory EDITORIAL FELLOWS Diablo Reservoir on the Skagit River from Highway 20 in Washington’s North Cascades. Diablo Dam is one of three Jessica Douglas, Brandon Yadegari Moreno Skagit River hydroelectric dams facing new scrutiny during the federal relicensing process. David Moskowitz / HCN EDITORIAL INTERNS Surya Milner, Wufei Yu DIRECTOR OF PHILANTHROPY Alyssa Pinkerton SENIOR DEVELOPMENT OFFICER Paul Larmer CHARITABLE GIVING ADVISOR Clara Fecht DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATES Hannah Stevens, Carol Newman DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT & MARKETING Gary Love MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER Michael Schrantz EVENTS & BUSINESS PARTNER COORDINATOR Laura Dixon DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Erica Howard FINANCE AND HR ADMINISTRATOR Mary Zachman CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Kathy Martinez Know CUSTOMER SERVICE Karen Howe, Mark Nydell, Pamela Peters, Tammy York GRANT WRITER Janet Reasoner the FOUNDER Tom Bell BOARD OF DIRECTORS John Belkin, president (Colo.), Seth Cothrun, treasurer (Ariz.), Jay Dean (Calif.), Bob Fulkerson (Nev.), Laura Helmuth, West. secretary (Md.), Samaria Jaffe (Calif.), Fátima Luna (Ariz.), Andrea Otáñez (Wash.), Marla Painter (N.M.), Raynelle Rino (Calif.), High Country News is an independent, reader-supported nonprofit 501(c)(3) media organization that covers the important Estee Rivera Murdock, vice president (Colo.), 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 Tara Teising (Tenn.), Dina Gilio-Whitaker, natural and human communities. High Country News (ISSN/0191/5657) publishes monthly, 12 issues per year, from 119 Grand (Calif.), Andy Wiessner (Colo.), Ave., Paonia, CO 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes Florence Williams (D.C.) to High Country News, Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles in this issue are 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 DIRECTOR EMERITUS Luis Torres (N.M.) or questions, write High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or [email protected], or call 970-527-4898.

2 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS EDITOR’S NOTE FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS

Jason Asenap Albuquerque, New Mexico @Asenap

Lester Black Mukilteo, Washington @leddder

Tony Davis Tucson, Arizona Reality check @tonydavis987

THE OTHER DAY I took a walk along the beach in the morning before the clouds lifted. A steady Tope Folarin breeze and the moist coastal air kept things cool enough to warrant a jacket. The high that day reached Washington, D.C. a rather pleasant 69 degrees Fahrenheit. By afternoon, it was warm in the sun, cool in the shade and @topefolarin comfortable all around: 69 degrees is well within the temperature range at which a human animal can live and thrive. But 110 (the high in the coastal town of Quillayute, Washington, on June 28) is not; nor is 116 (the high in Portland, Oregon, on June 28); or 117 (Las Vegas, June 20); or 118 (Dallesport, Washington, June 28); or 119 (Phoenix, June 20); or 121 (Lytton, British Columbia, June 29); and espe- Piper French cially not 125 (Needles, California, June 20) ; and forget about 130, one of the hottest temperatures Los Angeles, ever recorded on Earth (Death Valley, July 11). During this spate of record-breaking temperatures in California the West, hundreds of people died. @PiperSFrench

The heat, and the number of records it set, was unprecedented. Many of the record-breaking highs occurred in America’s temperate rainforest, where historically summer temperatures have been Max Graham comparatively cool. This is a reality check in a series of reality checks, putting the human species on Homer, Alaska alert that we appear to be pushing this planet beyond human habitability. Climate migration and @maxmugrah the number of climate refugees are both on the rise, with the greatest hardships largely hitting those least responsible, including here in the West. But where is there to go if the heat reaches everywhere?

The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred in the last 15 years, nine of them within the last Surya Milner decade. And the heat waves of the future are projected to be hotter, more frequent and longer-lasting. Bozeman, Montana According to a recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change, 37% of the heat-related deaths glob- @suryamilner ally between 1991 and 2018 can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Like the temperatures themselves, this number, too, is sure to increase.

Most of us are implicated in the carbon-based economy, and many of us have at least some idea of Rico Moore what’s needed to slow, if not reverse, this trend. There are ways of powering our homes and trans- Port Townsend, porting ourselves and the goods we consume that can reduce carbon emissions and put us on a path Washington to becoming a carbon-neutral society. Here in the West, we have the knowledge, the technology, the @ricocolorado money — and, above all, the very strong, very urgent need to tack hard in this direction. At stake is nothing less than the livability of the places we love — for humans as well as other beings — and the viability of the ecosystems that sustain us. But do we have the political will to confront the crisis that Debbie Weingarten is happening all around us? Our society will be judged by how we respond to this moment of reckoning. Tucson, Arizona @cactuswrenwrite

Jennifer Sahn, editor-in-chief

AUGUST 2021 3 Anastasia Rabin on her small farm in Elfrida, Arizona, where recent dust storms have left deposits of beach- FEATURE like sand up to two feet deep. Roberto (Bear) Guerra / HCN

Sucked Dry 30 Like many Apsáalooke, Birdie Real Bird was raised on the banks of the Little Bighorn River, which she and As a Minnesota mega-dairy expands into the West, her family used to rely upon for all their water needs. aquifer levels reach a dangerous low. Brandon Yadegari Moreno / HCN

BY DEBBIE WEINGARTEN AND TONY DAVIS PHOTOS BY ACKERMAN + GRUBER AND ROBERTO (BEAR) GUERRA / HCN

ON THE COVER Access to subscriber-only content: Cows at the Coronado Dairy’s feedlot in the Kansas hcn.org Settlement area near Sunizona in southeastern hcne.ws/digi-5308 Arizona. The feedlot is among the farm properties recently acquired by the Minnesota-based mega-dairy Riverview LLP. Roberto (Bear) Guerra / HCN Follow us @highcountrynews

4 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REPORTAGE REFLECTION & REVIEW

A grassroots movement 10 Neo-noir under smoke 45 In Something New Under the Sun, seeks to revive traditional climate change is the ultimate Apsáalooke water sources criminal backdrop. REVIEW BY PIPER FRENCH A polluted river has forced many families to rely on wells, which come with their own problems. There’s a new Indigenous 46 BY SURYA MILNER | FILM STILLS BY BRANDON YADEGARI MORENO TV series coming your way Reservation Dogs is the latest product of an exciting new era of Native self-representation. PREVIEW BY JASON ASENAP

The fragile freedom of 48 an open sky A writer remembers the joy — and pressures — of a childhood spent in Utah. ESSAY BY TOPE FOLARIN

#iamthewest 52 Steve Von Till, musician, poet, elementary school teacher, Spirit Lake, Idaho. BY RAJAH BOSE

Casitas against displacement 7 Climate change wreaks havoc 20 In a gentrifying West, housing on the grid advocates turn to backyard dwellings The combination of heat and drought is to keep communities together. especially deleterious to WHAT WORKS BY JESSICA KUTZ the power system. FACTS & FIGURES A quest for oil sparks 9 BY JONATHAN THOMPSON a tribal sovereignty ILLUSTRATION BY ABBEY ANDERSEN fight in Alaska A company with a history of environmental violations is conducting exploratory drilling in the Yukon Flats. BY MAX GRAHAM DEPARTMENTS

The Skagit River reconsidered 12 3 EDITOR’S NOTE PHOTOS BY DAVID MOSKOWITZ / HCN 6 LETTERS Reassessing the dams 14 Seattle’s Skagit River dams may be a death sentence 8 THE LATEST for chinook salmon — unless federal regulators act. BY LESTER BLACK 22 DONORS / READER PROFILES Restoring the sacred 17 The Upper Skagit Indian Tribe is pushing to protect its way of life, 26 EDUCATION MARKETPLACE calling on Seattle to remove the Gorge Dam. BY RICO MOORE 50 HEARD AROUND THE WEST

AUGUST 2021 5 LETTERS HOPE FROM BIDEN’S 30X30 PLAN used to encourage people to believe Wufei Yu’s excellent reporting “A it is not so bad. reality check on Biden’s ‘30 by 30’ It needs to halt immediately. conservation plan” (hcn.org, June We definitely cannot continue 23, 2021) springs open the conver- forest thinning to sustain the sation for the nation to digest bureaucracy at the expense of the and design a better 30x30. I am environment. The Forest Service inspired to study the report. needs to wake up and plant young Elaine Jefferson trees to encourage new growth, not New York, New York deplete the remaining timber. High Country News is dedicated to independent Harry Strong journalism, informed debate and discourse in the PUBLIC LANDS INUNDATED? Cottonwood, Arizona public interest. We welcome letters through The claim that Colorado and other digital media and the post. Send us a letter, find us Western states are being loved to ENCOURAGING WORDS on social media, or email us at [email protected]. death is wildly overstated, except Thank you for your editor’s note for the most-Instagrammed spots “Keeping up with the changing (“Public lands inundated,” June West” (June 2021). As the editor of 2021). I backpacked 732 miles diag- a regional weekly focused on agri- A HALLUCINOGENIC TOAD IN PERIL HOW MUCH LITHIUM DO WE NEED? onally across Colorado from the culture, farming life and related I lived in prime Sonoran Desert Thanks to Maya Kapoor for her southeast to northwest corners in politics in Southern and Western Toad habitat from 1989-2019 and excellent series on lithium mines the summer of 2020 and encoun- Norway, your words confirm to me read “A hallucinogenic toad in (“When Indigenous religious free- tered no more than three hikers what also our magazine Bonde- peril” (July 2021) with interest, dom and public-lands manage- a day in every place except near vennen (“Farmer’s Friend”) really especially since I know people who ment clash,” July 2021, and “The the resort town of Breckenridge. is and should be all about: cele- occasionally harvested the toad’s next mining boom?” March 2021). A check of hiking groups on Face- brating our lands, and safeguard- hallucinogenic secretions. The Cultural and environmental dam- book reveals recommendations ing them for all living creatures, habitat I refer to is a facility built age worldwide weigh heavily on that point to popular places like today and tomorrow. Here, too, on abandoned cotton fields in Pinal us already. I, for one, can’t wait the Fourteeners, Rocky Mountain the pace of change is accelerating, County, Arizona. Nightly watering for a better alternative fuel. National Park, Crested Butte and and any mention of “restraint” is of the grass combined with secu- Valerie McBride Boulder. I think today’s concen- quickly and nervously brushed off rity lights that attracted insects Boulder, Colorado trations of use are because few as negativity and a hindrance to created an artificial, but appar- people these days know how to “development.” Your words are an ently very hospitable, toad habi- UNCERTAIN WATER SUPPLY read a regional paper map or encouragement to keep on convey- tat. The population went through I thought “Uncertain water use a guidebook which would ing this very message, all the same. wild fluctuations every few years, supply” (June 2021) was a deeply point them toward a bear’s buffet Bothild Å. Nordsletten though. Sometimes the toads engaging and illuminating piece of splendid unknown areas. Norway would be abundant to the point of of regional journalism. It is clear India Wood inconvenience as they gathered that a lot of effort was invested in Boulder, Colorado RENEWING, FOR NOW near outside security lights to feast the research and reporting of the I’m guessing I’m a bit more urban on insects, making getting through article’s subject, and it is very much THE FIRE NEXT TIME and left-leaning than Neil Snyder the doors a challenge. Other years reflected in the writing. In the article “The Fire Next Time” (Letters, June 2021, “Changes”), we would remark on how few It is a great example of the kind (June 2021), I wish to point out that but I largely agree with him about there were. I suspect the cyclical of investigative regional journal- despite numerous large wildfires, HCN. Yet I’m sticking with you population changes were due to ism that I most appreciate from global warming and the ongoing for now, renewing for just one many factors other than human HCN. destruction of global rainforests, year based on Jennifer Sahn’s harvesting. Eddy Torres the Forest Service continues to first issue as editor-in-chief. She Bryan Burke Mesquite, Nevada promote the cutting down of live may not be a physicist, like HCN’s Bellingham, Washington trees. These trees are harvested for best in my memory, but thank the large egos that run the bureau- God she’s not a preacher, like the cracy, so that they can maintain worst. As long as HCN remembers their authority. that BLM means more than Black CORRECTIONS To sound effective, the Forest Lives Matter — say their names, We apologize for the mistakes in “Uncertain Water Supply” (June 2021). Service proclaims that trees need but abbreviate such a worthy The correct name of the subdivision is Cadence at Gateway, not Gateway; to be thinned in case a wildfire statement, really?? — but rather there are three pools, not two, and currently no coffee shop or spa; the happens by one summer. They the Bureau of Land Management, community center was wrongly identified; and other companies besides explain that thinning is necessary full of its own controversies, HCN Lennar have built houses in the subdivision. Much of that information in order to prevent or control wild- will not have lost its soul. was found on Cadence’s website, and we thank the developer for contact- fires. In reality, thinning is a polite Jeff Winslow ing us to correct the mistakes. We regret the errors. word for the term logging, and it’s Portland, Oregon

6 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Sharayah Jimenez and her grandmother, Victoria Robles Orosco, stand in front New Mexico and Washington of an addition to the home they are trying to encourage ADU share in Tucson’s Southside. development by making them Roberto (Bear) Guerra / HCN easier to build and permit. But critics say this approach can backfire. In a series of public Before long, sprawl would overtake meetings held in May over Zoom, the urban landscape. Tucson residents shared some Now it’s happening again, as common concerns. Many fear that moneyed newcomers flock to the ADUs could be converted into short- remaining neighborhoods and term rentals like Airbnbs, or that gentrify them. Compounding the investors will simply purchase the problem is the fact that Tucson, properties in order to turn an even much like the rest of the country, greater profit. Furthermore, ADUs is facing a housing crisis. Prices are often too pricey for low-income have risen by nearly 27% over the homeowners to build. In Seattle, last year, due in part to low interest for example, in 2017, most ADU rates and a pandemic-inspired permits were acquired by already- influx of transplants from other wealthy homeowners, according states. More than a third of the to the Urban Land Institute. And city’s residents are “housing cost- while ADUs do provide more burdened,” spending more than affordable options in high-priced 30% of their income on housing, cities, they are often still out of according to research compiled reach for low-income residents. by the University of Arizona MAP Housing advocates like Dashboard project. The same trend Sharayah Jimenez believe the is playing out across the West. solution is to prioritize low-to- In order to increase the moderate-income residents housing stock, policymakers are (earning approximately $51,000 increasingly turning to accessory for a family of four) in the rollout of dwelling units, or ADUs — extra ADU development. Jimenez is the WHAT WORKS units on property typically zoned founder and principal designer for for single-family houses. ADUs the architecture firm CUADRO. As can come in the form of cottages part of Tucson’s ADU stakeholders’ or casitas, or be attached to the group, she is focused on making existing house, like basement sure the benefits flow to the city’s Casitas against apartments. Though they’re clearly remaining historic barrios and to not a solution to the crisis, housing the Southside, the mainly working- displacement advocates across the region see class Latino neighborhoods where ADUs as a way to help prevent the she grew up. “What I'm hoping to In a gentrifying West, housing advocates turn to backyard displacement of communities by do is work with homeowners to dwellings to keep communities together. gentrification. They can provide teach them how to develop their an extra source of income for lots themselves with these ADUs BY JESSICA KUTZ homeowners struggling to pay and add value to their homes, rising property taxes, as well as (as well as) get the funding and giving renters more affordable the loans they need to make the housing options. improvements to stay in their TODAY, SOME OF Tucson’s urban renewal. In their 2010 book neighborhoods,” she said. downtown barrios are mere La Calle, Tucson historian and TUCSON CITY OFFICIALS In Denver, Colorado, an ADU ghosts of their former selves. The author Lydia Otero described how kicked off the rezoning process pilot program could soon provide longtime residents of these historic the barrios were demolished for to allow for ADUs last November. a blueprint for how to reach such neighborhoods, primarily Mexican a slew of city-approved projects The Arizona city is a relative residents. Run by the West Denver Americans as well as Chinese that catered to a growing white newcomer to the growing trend: Renaissance Collaborative, which and African Americans, have suburban population, including California and Oregon passed includes the city and county of been displaced twice in the last a multilevel parking garage, a statewide laws in 2019 to encourage Denver and the Denver Housing half-century. convention center and a police ADU construction in response to Authority, the initiative has spent The first time was in the 1960s, station. Single-family homes with their own housing crises, having the past year assisting low-to- when hundreds of adobe homes carports and front yards became legalized the units many years moderate-income residents in were bulldozed in the name of the preferred style of desert living. before. Cities in Colorado, Utah, rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.

AUGUST 2021 7 The program provides between during the pandemic, but, he said, feel that whatever investors could BACK IN TUCSON, Jimenez $50,000 to $75,000 in cost savings “there are ongoing conversations in do with our property in terms of hopes to incorporate ADUs into the to homeowners who build ADUs, the city about how we might better ADUs, we can do ourselves, (so we community before it’s too late. It’s along with technical assistance and support BIPOC homeowners to do can) keep this in our family and already happening informally in pre-approved designs. In addition, those types of projects.” have intergenerational wealth,” the Southside, where a majority of the city is offering $30,000 loans For residents like Ruby she said. work has been done without permits. that do not have to be repaid Holland, a housing activist in Holland’s efforts took on "We have no data on this, but we think if the owner agrees to rent the Seattle, ADUs feel like one of the new urgency in 2019, when that there's a very large number of unit at an affordable rate for 25 last chances to prevent further the city passed the Mandatory these unpermitted units already in years. “Building ADUs requires displacement in the city’s Central Housing Affordability legislation. existence. So part of our work is to a fair amount of money that a lot District. Holland grew up in the Though her house fell outside its make sure that those homeowners of families don't have upfront,” district, home to the city’s last boundaries, many of her neighbors who have already done this have a said Renee Martinez-Stone, the stronghold of Black residents. were affected by the legislation, clear path as to how to get their units initiative’s director. For that Today, she lives in the house her which allowed single-family homes (permitted),” she explained. reason, residents who are at risk of parents bought decades ago, in in parts of the city to be redeveloped Rather than penalize the new foreclosure or facing equally dire the days of redlining. Back then, into multifamily units. She calls it additions, she hopes the city can financial circumstances have the she said, the neighborhood had a “redlining in reverse,” because ever find ways to promote them by option to join a community land majority Black population. Now, since it passed, her neighbors have educating current homeowners trust, a nonprofit that essentially however, Black people make up faced increasing pressure to sell to about their options and empowering holds onto the land, removing just 20% of residents. So, three developers, even as their property families to hold onto their lots in it from the private market. They years ago, Holland started a taxes have increased. Holland the face of rising property taxes, can then use that equity to invest neighborhood group, Keep Your fears that this type of policy is much as Holland is doing in in financing the remaining cost of Habitat, whose mission is to teach deliberately designed to force the Seattle. Otherwise, she explained, building an ADU. Central District residents how city’s last Black residents out of homeowners in low-income Seattle is also looking for ways to hold onto their properties by Seattle. But Stephanie Velasco, a communities of color often don't to remove financial barriers to ADU transforming parts of their current communications manager with the realize the value of their land. “They construction, said Nick Welch, a homes into ADUs — converting city, defends the MHA program as a sell too early, and they get ripped off, city planner. Plans to roll out a basements into apartments, say, or tool to increase affordable housing, and then somebody comes in and loan program targeting low-income building backyard cottages, even “not (one) that is actively displacing does what they probably could have homeowners were put on hold renting their yards for parking. “I households.” done themselves,” she said. She applauds how many of the already-built units have been created in what she calls a “barn- raising fashion,” in which family “They sell too early, and they get ripped off, and and neighbors help people build their units to keep costs low. Often then somebody comes in and does what they the new ADUs are used to house relatives. “People are already probably could have done themselves.” responding to the housing crisis on their own,” she said. “The city is just now catching up to that.”

THE LATEST Backstory Followup The residential boarding schools of the early In June, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna 19th and mid-20th century left a brutal legacy: Pueblo) announced plans for the Federal Indian Native children were taken from homes, abused, Boarding School Initiative, a first-of-its-kind forced to assimilate and used as leverage “comprehensive review” of the U.S. government’s against tribes that resisted U.S. expansion (“The history of separating Native children from their U.S. stole generations of Indigenous children to families and forcing them into boarding schools. open the West,” 10/14/19). Their descendants It will investigate Interior’s records, identify Residential have long demanded transparency about why known and likely burial sites, and present a so many died at government- and church- final report in April 2022. The discovery of 215 school run schools like the Carlisle Indian Industrial unmarked graves at a former school in Canada School, and why their remains were not returned prompted the department to examine the United review to their tribes. States’ own genocidal past. —Anna V. Smith

8 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS REPORTAGE

A quest for oil sparks a tribal sovereignty fight in Alaska A company with a history of environmental violations is conducting exploratory drilling in the Yukon Flats.

BY MAX GRAHAM

Sources: Doyon Ltd.; U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

EVERY SPRING, the shallow tribal governments. is the largest private landowner Birch Creek Tribal Council declined ponds and spruce forests of the Soon after Doyon announced in Alaska, with more than 20,000 to comment.) Yukon Flats, in Interior Alaska, its deal with Hilcorp, the Gwichyaa shareholders. Doyon’s press releases assert stir with the flapping of scoters Zhee Gwich’in Tribal Government “A lot of people seem to give that Hilcorp’s drilling this summer and scaups, the laugh-like yelps passed a resolution opposing oil Alaska Native corporations a pass will not cause environmental of white-fronted geese and the and gas development in the Yukon because they are titled Alaska damage. Yet opponents worry that high-pitched whistle of wigeons. Flats, citing worries about envi- Native corporations,” Alexander exploration could lead to long- Up to 2 million birds arrive each ronmental degradation, threats to said. “There is this view that what term development, and they have year to nest in some of North traditional ways of life and infringe- they are doing is in the best inter- concerns about Hilcorp’s environ- America’s most productive water- ments on tribal sovereignty. Last est of the people.” But even when mental record: The company, which fowl breeding grounds. Along with fall, the board of the Tanana Chiefs individual shareholders do not bought all of BP’s fossil fuel assets salmon, moose and other wildlife, Conference, which represents 42 want to develop natural resources, and interests in Alaska in 2020 and they provide food for the human tribal governments in Alaska’s Alexander said, they’re represented is now one of the state’s biggest residents of the region, where a Interior, also opposed the project. by board members whose duty is oil and gas producers, has been half-gallon of milk can cost $7.99. “What we get to consume here is to the corporation’s bottom line. responsible for numerous natural “It’s not only our subsistence,” the most unadulterated food on Doyon did not notify its share- gas leaks in Alaska’s Cook Inlet. In said Rochelle Adams, a member of the planet,” said Dacho Alexander, holders, according to Alexander a 2015 letter to Hilcorp, the chair of the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Tribal a Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Tribal and Adams, both shareholders, and the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Government of Fort Yukon, who is Government council member and did not consult all the tribal govern- Commission, which regulates fossil from the villages of Fort Yukon and former chief. “Our water is clean. ments in the Yukon Flats before fuel production in the state, wrote Beaver. “It’s our connection to the Our environment is clean. There’s announcing its deal with Hilcorp that regulatory noncompliance lands and waters. It’s a part of our just simply no dollar amount that in December 2019. (Doyon refused is “endemic” to the company’s identity, because our people have you could put on those places.” to comment for this story.) approach. Since then, Hilcorp has lived here since our creation.” To Alexander, Doyon’s push to Now, Doyon and Hilcorp accrued three times as many cita- This summer, drilling rigs explore for fossil fuels illustrates a are proceeding to drill 15 strati- tions as each of Alaska’s biggest will join the wildlife in the Yukon “major disconnect” between Alaska graphic boreholes — shallow test oil producers during that time, Flats, as Hilcorp Alaska, a private Native regional corporations and wells for soil analysis — near the ConocoPhillips and BP, according company with a reputation for tribal governments. Unlike feder- Gwich’in villages of Birch Creek to state documents High Country regulatory violations, explores for ally recognized tribes, which are and Fort Yukon by the end of News obtained via a records request. oil and gas. Hilcorp is operating sovereign nations, Alaska Native summer. Doyon has promised As Hilcorp begins drilling under a 2019 agreement with Doyon corporations are for-profit compa- that oil and gas development will in the Yukon Flats, Adams, who Ltd., an Alaska Native regional nies owned by Alaska Native bring economic opportunity to started a Facebook group to raise corporation, which owns 1.6 million shareholders, who receive annual the region. The company entered awareness of the project, recalled a acres of mineral rights bordering dividends of a few hundred to a few into a “cooperation agreement” 2017 leak from a Hilcorp gas pipe- the Yukon Flats National Wildlife thousand dollars. They were created with Tihteet’ Aii, the Birch Creek line in Cook Inlet that lasted for Refuge. The companies’ plans under the 1971 federal Alaska Native village corporation, but neither about four months. “I can’t even have raised concerns among local Claims Settlement Act to give tribal entity has released specifics about imagine what can happen to the tribes and exposed the complicated members economic autonomy, it or the projected economic bene- Yukon River,” which bisects the dynamics between for-profit Alaska primarily through ownership of fits. (Tihteet’ Aii did not respond Flats, she said. “I don’t want to Native corporations and sovereign natural resources. Today, Doyon to requests for comment, and the imagine.”

AUGUST 2021 9 REPORTAGE EMERY THREE IRONS, a Crow Wyoming border. While the kids tribal member, stood in tall, lush played hide-and-seek, Three Irons grass one day in late May, contem- peered underneath the kitchen plating a cream-colored house. sink and surveyed a set of exposed After 20 minutes of reflection, pipes, speaking with Walks in he approached two 5-year-olds the Apsáalooke language about A grassroots movement standing on the front steps, eating connecting one of the property’s popsicles and playing with a two wells to a working pump. For seeks to revive traditional puppy. “Is your grandpa awake?” three months, Walks, who works he asked them, his soft voice nights at the Rosebud Mine at Apsáalooke water barely rising above the thrum Colstrip, his wife, Kim, and their of the nearby interstate. “Go ask grandchildren had lived in the sources him, Ivan,” the girl said to the house without running water. boy. “No, you go ask him,” the When Kim broke her arm a few A polluted river has forced many families to rely on wells, boy responded, before they both months ago, she had to have which come with their own problems. disappeared into the house. surgery. “Not having water makes Three Irons followed them it harder,” Everette said. BY SURYA MILNER into the living room to meet with The visit was part of a new proj- FILM STILLS BY BRANDON YADEGARI MORENO Everette Walks, an Apsáalooke ect for Three Irons, a GIS analyst for grandfather. Walks’ house is on the Crow Water Quality Project, a the Apsáalooke, or Crow, Nation group of scientists from Little Big in Montana, not far from the Horn College and Montana State

Members of the Crow Tribe are working to study the Little Bighorn River — once a primary source of water for Apsáalooke communities — and to protect it from contamination. University working to improve agriculture, some through a federal slogan. “They’re not lying, even access to clean water on the system of canals that waters local though it’s cheesy and seems like Crow Nation. Early this summer, alfalfa, wheat and sugar beet fields. a common saying.” he began conducting home Extensive withdrawals have left the assessments in rural areas, trou- river ankle-deep in the summer, TWELVE MILES DOWN the bleshooting ways to install potable causing dangerously high levels of interstate from the Walks home, running water in the many houses nutrients along with periodic town- Peggy Wellknown Buffalo sat in Living Water that lack plumbing. wide water restrictions. the wood-paneled living room of Until the 1960s, the Little And area wells aren’t much a building, situated between the Accompanying this Bighorn River was the main source better. In 2018, local scientists and river and an irrigation ditch, that story is a short film, of water for the Crow Nation. But tribal members found that 40% of houses the Center Pole, a grass- Living Water, about the pollution from upstream farms them are contaminated with coli- roots nonprofit organization she Apsáalooke community’s contaminated the river, forcing form bacteria; many also contain founded to provide food and water efforts to protect and many families to switch to well nitrate, uranium and arsenic at to the community. As we spoke, her revitalize the Little water. The Little Bighorn still levels that exceed EPA safety stan- grandchildren streamed in and out, Bighorn River. provides municipal water to Crow dards, increasing the risk of chronic moving boxes of donated clothing This film is the Agency, the Crow Nation’s govern- diseases like cancer and diabetes. and cooking up burgers for lunch. second in a series of ment headquarters, but the tribe’s Researchers think the most likely During the pandemic, she documentary projects water rights are junior to those of culprit is a combination of leaking recalled, she asked community directed by Brandon some non-Native farmers in the septic tanks and agricultural pollu- members what everyday items they Yadegari Moreno as area. During the growing season, tion. They also say the impacts of needed most. “I couldn’t believe part of HCN’s Climate much of the river is diverted for climate change — erratic spring how many people called for water,” Justice Fellowship, flooding, lower water levels and she said. About 150 to 200 people with support from the longer summer droughts — could were worried about their plumbing, Society of Environmental exacerbate the problems. their wells running dry or pumps Journalists. Three Irons had just gradu- breaking. Wellknown Buffalo has ated from college with a degree had her own water tested at the To view the film, visit in geospatial and environmental Center Pole three times over the hcn.org/living-water or, analysis in 2015 when leaders of past decade; the results showed using your smartphone’s the Crow Water Quality Project that it’s unsafe to drink, high in camera app, scan the approached him and asked him to E. coli and metals. She drives 19 code below: undertake a graduate project study- miles a couple times a week to buy ing well water contamination and 5-gallon jugs of clean water for spring water quality. He agreed $3.99 each. immediately; he grew up along Wellknown Buffalo’s grand- the banks of the Little Bighorn mother and great-aunt taught her River and wanted to use his educa- to see the river as a place of refuge, tion to help his community. Now, a lesson that she still carries. The Three Irons and his colleagues are river’s presence meant she never combining scientific, cultural and needed to feel helpless. “It will community-centered approaches provide for you,” she said. As she to revive the traditional water spoke, her childhood friend Birdie sources of the Crow Tribe. “Water Real Bird nodded in agreement. is life,” he said, quoting a popular (continued on page 44)

Emery Three Irons at his family home along the Little Bighorn River.

AUGUST 2021 11 REPORTAGE

The Gorge Dam, the lowest of the three large hydroelectric dams on the Skagit River in Washington, in an area known as the Valley of the Spirits. THE SKAGIT RIVER RECONSIDERED The Skagit River runs about 150 miles through what is now British Columbia into northwest Washington, from the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound. Along the way, three major hydroelectric dams owned by the city of Seattle — Ross Dam, Diablo Dam and the Gorge Dam — block the river’s flow. Now, as part of a once- every-few-decades federal relicensing process, the ecological alterations caused by those dams are being re-examined by scientists and regulators. The license renewal is exposing other changes, too, including how Indigenous nations are increasingly asserting their sovereignty and rights. Looked at from one angle, this regulatory process is simply a bureaucratic hoop Seattle must jump through to keep using the Skagit River to generate power. From another, however, it’s a chance to reconsider the value of the river itself. The relicensing process has triggered many different conversations on the Skagit's future; the following stories focus on a few of them.

PHOTOS BY DAVID MOSKOWITZ / HCN DEVIN SMITH WASN’T IMPRESSED as he etched into the forest, and Barnaby Slough was looked out across the stagnant water of Barnaby the river’s mainstem. The complex network of Slough, a pond near the edge of the Skagit side channels this produced protected young River in northern Washington. “Steelhead like salmon from heat and predators. But by the fast-moving water,” Smith said, a steady May 1940s, the Skagit River had straightened and Reassessing rain pelting his glasses. The slough, however, become separated from Barnaby, cutting off was more like “a big bathtub.” Smith is the hundreds of acres of salmon habitat. Eventu- habitat restoration director for the Skagit River ally, Washington state added small barriers to the dams System Cooperative, a natural resources consor- turn the slough into a fish-rearing pond, further tium of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Commu- isolating it. Today, the river remains detached Seattle’s Skagit River dams may be a nity and the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe. from the surrounding fish habitat, and scientists death sentence for chinook salmon Barnaby hasn’t always been such a bad place are wondering why. — unless federal regulators act. for young fish. Over a century ago, this valley Seattle’s three Skagit River dams, approxi- of towering cedars and moss-drenched maples mately 25 miles upriver from Barnaby, are a likely BY LESTER BLACK was one of the most productive salmon habitats culprit. Commissioned between 1924 and 1952, in the entire Pacific Northwest. Back then, the they generate roughly 20% of Seattle’s power. Skagit River meandered across the valley floor in But they also limit the river’s seasonal flooding a maze of waterways, which exist today as glades and starve it of the sediment and fallen trees that

14 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS “We had salmon then. We don’t now.”

would naturally raise its water level and help that Seattle’s dams are harming local salmon Barnaby Slough was once the Skagit River’s salmon access side channels. Now, research- and orca populations. Two of the river’s salmon mainstem, but today the slough and its ers want to know: Could the Skagit and Barn- species, Puget Sound chinook and Puget Sound surrounding salmon habitat are rarely connected to the river. The dams’ obstruction of sediment aby reconnect if the sediment currently locked steelhead, and the river’s bull trout are listed and logs could be to blame (facing). Upper Skagit behind the dams was released into the river? as threatened under the Endangered Species Indian Tribe scientists and others have found That question could soon be answered. Seat- Act, while a third salmon species is a “species evidence of salmon upstream of this section of tle launched over $20 million worth of studies this of concern.” The local killer whale population, the river below the Gorge Dam. Seattle City Light, however, claims that it is a natural barrier to summer as part of the federal process to renew which almost exclusively eats chinook salmon, spawning fish (above). the dams’ licenses, which expire in 2025. These is sliding toward extinction, with only 74 indi- studies will investigate how the dams are hurting viduals left. While other factors are also to blame the ecosystem, including protected salmon popu- — mining operations, highway construction and from state, federal and tribal governments. Seattle lations, which have plummeted in recent decades. farming have all damaged the river’s health — City Light, the city department that manages the They’ll also help determine what the city must do the National Marine Fisheries Service wrote in dams, spent the last two years refusing dozens of to mitigate the problems. As Seattle applies for a October 2020 that Seattle’s current dam opera- study requests from regulatory agencies on topics new license that could last as long as 50 years, the tions are “not adequate to support survival and such as how the dams impact the river’s estuary, latest science is showing that the dams may not recovery” of the protected species. side-channel salmon habitat, fish passage and be compatible with a healthy river. Seattle’s early decisions in the relicensing key water-quality standards. This spring, however, Federal scientists are already convinced process generated widespread condemnation the utility changed course, and in June it agreed

AUGUST 2021 15 Lorraine Loomis, the fisheries manager for the to many studies it had earlier rejected, although it Swinomish Indian Tribal Community (left). continues to deny a request from the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe to look at removing the Gorge Dam, Seattle City Light produces about one-fifth of the city’s lowest and oldest dam on the Skagit. (See Seattle’s electricity. The Skagit River dams are a critical part of the utility’s power infrastructure companion story opposite.) (below). Scientists now are working across the entire watershed to understand the dams’ impacts through dozens of studies, from installing new thermometers that will measure water tempera- we have new tools, and we have agreed to model ture fluctuations below the dams to surveying the optimal flows for anadromous fish passage,” how often trout in the city’s reservoirs are killed Townsend said. “If it shows that we need to do by the dams’ turbines. Researchers will also fish passage over one or more of the dams, we attempt to quantify how much sediment the will do that.” city’s three reservoirs hold. That, combined with Building fish passages would likely cost a new pilot program to release sediment into the millions of dollars. In 1996, during the relicens- river, should help them figure out how to recon- ing of the Condit Dam on the White Salmon nect the side-channel habitat at Barnaby Slough River in southern Washington, FERC required — and perhaps bring salmon back to the area. the dam’s owner, PacificCorp, to install fish passage technology. But rather than pay for the ONE OF THE MOST CONTENTIOUS ques- April, a crew of scientists from the Washington expensive improvements, PacificCorp removed tions facing Seattle’s dams is whether the concrete State Department of Fish and Wildlife and the the dam in 2011. barriers prevent salmon from reaching the National Park Service found an entire school Regardless of what FERC ultimately decides Skagit’s glaciated headwaters in North Cascades of approximately 50 young coho salmon above for the Skagit, the science on the risks the river National Park. Seattle City Light has long main- the alleged barriers — implying that at least two faces — and the regulatory agency decisions tained that a steep section of riverbed littered with adult fish were able to swim past the boulder driven by that understanding — has changed cabin-sized boulders two miles below the Gorge field and reproduce. since the current license was issued in 1995. Dam — and not the dam itself — thwarts spawn- Chris Townsend, Seattle City Light’s During that relicensing process, the Washington ing salmon. Federal agencies, however, have said director of hydroelectric operations and FERC Department of Ecology voluntarily waived its the city hasn’t identified any rocks that would relicensing, defended the utility’s actions by right to analyze how the dams affect the river’s actually qualify as a barrier to the fish. pointing out that the Fisheries Service had water quality, and the Fisheries Service didn’t The Upper Skagit Indian Tribe’s own determined as recently as 2012 that natural even request studying fish passage at the city’s history confirms that fish could spawn above barriers were impeding salmon. The agency dams. this section. The tribe wrote in an October 2020 has since reversed that position, however, and Lorraine Loomis, the fisheries manager for FERC filing that its scientists had documented also asserted that orcas won’t survive without the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, said the presence of salmon upriver of the rocks the changes at Seattle’s dams. Townsend also said the decline of the river’s salmon since 1995 is city claims block the fish. Two months later, that his department has agreed to test its natural painfully obvious. “We had salmon then. We Seattle City Light dismissed the tribe’s evidence, barrier hypothesis with a computer model, and don’t now,” she said as she sat at an old picnic writing that it was “inappropriate to engage in to study the feasibility of providing fish passage table on her tribe’s reservation near the mouth conjecture” about fish passage. But as recently as past all three of the city’s dams. “It’s a new day, of the Skagit River, the smell of saltwater hanging in the air. The river’s nearby estuary is a grassy maze of tidal wetlands that protect young salmon from predators, just like the woody side channels 70 miles upriver at Barnaby Slough. Loomis compared these environments to hotels: They give salmon a place to stay and grow stronger before they swim to the sea. But now, “there’s not enough hotels along the river anymore,” she said, leaning forward, her hands on the picnic table’s rough boards. “So rather than stay at some place to grow a little, they keep on going down the river and then go out to sea, and they can’t survive.” The Swinomish are fighting for additional research — studying how sediment impacts the estuary habitat, for example — because the shrinking salmon stocks are threatening both their treaty-protected fishing rights and their very way of life, Loomis said. “We have to make sure we do everything possible to recover the salmon.” RAINDROPS FELL through gusts of fresh Scott and Janelle Schuyler haul in chinook salmon on April air as clouds and mist draped the ridges the Skagit River. Whenever tribal members fish on the above the Skagit River near Hamilton, Wash- river, a tribal law enforcement officer stands guard at the boat launch to ensure their safety; hate crimes ington, a few dozen miles upriver from Puget and anti-Indigenous violence have been regular Sound. Lifelong fisherman Scott Schuyler, an occurrences over the years. Restoring Upper Skagit Tribal elder and a policy represen- tative for the tribe, was dressed for the weather in green rubber boots beneath an orange and Scott Schuyler’s family left their Skagit the sacred yellow rain slicker. His 20-year-old daughter, Valley homeland before he was born, in search of Janelle Schuyler, in similar gear, hopped on economic opportunity. The state of Washington The Upper Skagit Indian Tribe is board her father’s boat as he shoved off from had said it was illegal for them to fish in the pushing to protect its way of life, shore in search of salmon. Skagit. The tribe’s treaty-protected fishing rights calling on Seattle to remove “We hope to have a good day out here on the had yet to be adjudicated, and state law forbade the Gorge Dam. river,” Scott Schuyler said. He wanted not only the practice. to catch some fish, but also to use the trip as a Following the “Fish Wars” of the early 1970s, BY RICO MOORE learning opportunity for his daughter. “One of when Indigenous activists successfully fought the things I like to instill in our young people, for their fishing rights, the 1974 federal Boldt and my daughter in particular, is make a differ- Decision affirmed the tribes’ treaty rights to 50% ence, effect change, while you can.” of the harvest in their “usual and accustomed

AUGUST 2021 17 grounds.” Schuyler’s family returned to the dam, which has dewatered parts of a three-mile valley, and he reconnected with his culture and stretch in the Valley of the Spirits. Schuyler is “Dams just aren’t became a fisherman. “I knew immediately that leading the tribe’s effort. “There’s over 100 years this is who we’re supposed to be, who I am, and of the river dewatered, that five generations of good for salmon. who I will always be,” Schuyler said. Upper Skagit had to endure,” Schuyler said. “We As he explored his ancestral homeland, don’t see the river flowing. There’s an eerie quiet ... The time is now Schuyler visited the upper Skagit River Valley, that’s unnatural to us. You don’t have the sounds where he encountered the Gorge Dam. When the of the river singing.” in order to keep city of Seattle decided to dam the Skagit River in The Upper Skagit believe the declines the early 1900s, it chose a sacred area known as among the river’s once-abundant fish — the bull salmon for future “The Valley of the Spirits,” without consulting trout, chinook salmon and steelhead that once the Upper Skagit, who at the time were fight- thrived here — are primarily due to the Gorge generations.” ing for their survival. “You look throughout the Dam, which blocks fish from reaching miles of world’s cultures,” Schuyler said, “when they historic salmon habitat upstream and prevents have their individual stories in their culture of the downstream passage of wood, gravel and how life began, this is it for us. I can’t explain sediment that are essential for the fish. The dam the emotions of seeing this historic wrong, and has also inundated a culturally significant area. the hurt.” “If you do this assessment, and if you remove Now, thanks to the federal dam license one of these dams, well, you immediately take renewal process, the Upper Skagit have an away all these harms for at least a portion of the opportunity to push Seattle City Light to right watershed,” Schuyler said. that wrong by taking down the Gorge Dam. The The Upper Skagit share federally reserved The numerous braided channels of the Skagit River estuary, created by sediment washed Upper Skagit Indian Tribe is asking Seattle to treaty rights to co-manage the Skagit River with down the river, are vital habitat for juvenile conduct an official removal assessment for the the Swinomish Tribe, the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe salmon.

18 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS and the state of Washington. The tribes must be and the water. It makes us who we are as people.” consulted and their issues and interests taken On the boat, she watched her father with into consideration as part of the relicensing a subtle smile, then turned to look at the net, process. But their consent is not required, nor where her father’s gaze was fixed. A loud splash can they insist that a study be completed. For erupted in the mesh, and the silver flash of a big the dam removal assessment to happen, Seattle salmon’s tail arched and pounded the river’s City Light must grant the Upper Skagit’s request surface, shooting droplets of water into the rain. — which it has denied, even though the city has “That’s unexpected!” Scott Schuyler exclaimed championed tribal rights in other contexts — or with a grin. FERC itself could mandate the study. Failing After hauling in the fish, Janelle said: “I that, the Upper Skagit can file suit in federal know that the dam is coming down in my life- district court to attempt to have the assessment time. It’s no biggie. I had an epiphany last time carried out. I was out on the water with my father, fishing. I The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe did just that, filing was just thinking about the ceremony that we’re a lawsuit on June 30 against Seattle City Light, gonna have when the dam is removed, and the arguing that the Gorge Dam blocks the passage relief. It’s going to be great. of fish and therefore should not be maintained “I’m only 20. They’re gonna have to deal with in its present condition unless a means for fish me for a long time,” she added, referring to city passage can be provided. officials. The Swinomish Tribe has not issued an offi- “Never, never underestimate the resolve of cial position on whether it wants the Gorge Dam this tribe,” Scott Schuyler said. “We’ve been here taken down. “The Swinomish Tribe has a dream for 10,000 years. We’re gonna be here after these of a free-flowing Skagit River,” Swinomish Tribal dams are long gone, and we certainly are going to Chairman Steve Edwards said. But he added continue to push them to do the right thing.” that the benefits of removing the Gorge Dam are unclear. “Our focus and priority are ensuring that the best, most current science guides future Scott Schuyler of the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe cooks some of the salmon he just caught at the tribal policy decisions for the Skagit River’s manage- headquarters Schuyler learned the ironwood skewer barbecue technique from other fish cooks, ment.” including master fish cook Claude Wilbur from the Swinomish Tribe, grandfather of Jeremy J.J. Wilbur. Schuyler hopes to one day “pass the torch” to younger tribal members (above). “Dams just aren’t good for salmon. If we can find another way to supply electricity to folks The Swinomish Canoe Family performs songs along the banks of the Skagit River to honor the water. other than dams, I’m all for it,” said Jeremy They spoke on the importance of salmon in preserving their cultural identity and how this directly J.J. Wilbur, a lifelong salmon fisherman and impacts the health and well-being of their community (below). a Swinomish Senate member, speaking for himself and not on behalf of the tribe. “The time is now in order to keep salmon for future generations,” he added.

BACK ON THE SCHUYLERS’ BOAT, the rain continued to fall as Scott Schuyler cast his fishing net into the water. “We’ll just pray for some fish,” he said. Janelle has taken action of her own on behalf of the Skagit’s salmon, gathering over 45,000 signatures for an online petition she started in 2019. She has also written to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, asking her to consider removing the Gorge Dam. “I want you to know that carrying this knowledge of what the city has done here brings me great pain and sorrow every day with my understanding of what has been inflicted on the Upper Skagit people and our salmon,” she wrote. The mayor never responded to her, or, for that matter, to High Country News when asked for comment regarding the denial of the request for a dam removal assessment. “They’re never going to understand,” Janelle said of Seattle City Light. “They don’t have years and years of lineage tied to this land, salmon,

AUGUST 2021 19 A hydroelectric dam is one of the most versa- FACTS & FIGURES tile items in a grid operator’s tool box. The reservoir acts as an energy storage unit, and power output can be regulated by adjusting the amount of water running through the turbines. But as reservoir levels plummet due to reduced flows and heat-induced evaporation, the generating capacity also Climate change wreaks drops — potentially to zero. California’s hydropower generation is down 37% this year havoc on the grid despite increased demand. And with Lake Powell and Lake Mead reaching record low levels, the entire region’s hydropower supply Heat and drought combined are especially is drying up. deleterious to the power system.

BY JONATHAN THOMPSON

IN LATE JUNE, A BLISTERING HEAT WAVE settled over the Pacific Northwest, shattering high-temperature records from California to Canada. Hundreds of outdoor laborers or those who lacked air conditioning were hospitalized for heat-related ailments, and dozens died. Portland’s transit operator suspended rail service because of heat-damaged cables, while highways in Washington were closed due to buckling asphalt. But the heat’s biggest — and perhaps most consequential — infrastructure victim was the vast electricity grid that powers nearly every aspect of modern life, including potentially life-saving air conditioning. Extreme weather exacerbated by climate change can mess with the grid Grid operators are tasked with keeping in any number of ways: Cold can freeze gas lines, while hurricanes topple electricity supply equal to the demand at transmission towers. But heat, particularly when combined with hydro- all times. Most of this balancing act occurs power-depleting drought, has an especially deleterious effect, wreaking a day before the weather changes: Grid havoc on the power system just when the warmer climes need it most. operators forecast the next day’s demand Meanwhile, power plants — the fossil-fueled “heart” of the grid and line up supply accordingly, making real-time adjustments as needed. They — make climate change worse and the planet even warmer, creating a have thousands of generators, from hydro- feedback loop that resembles a gigantic electrical monster swallowing power dams to natural gas and nuclear its own tail. plants, to choose from.

June scored a hot-time triple whammy in the West, with extreme heat blanketing the Southwest first, then the Northwest, then Southern California again. Death Valley hit 129 degrees Fahrenheit, just shy of a new record, and Salem, Oregon, reached 113 Fahrenheit on June 27, melting the old record. The heat is not just uncomfortable; it’s also potentially deadly. In Maricopa County, Arizona, where for several days the nighttime temperature never dropped below an oven-like 90-plus degrees, 53 deaths were believed to be heat-related. Meanwhile, in Oregon, the death toll exceeded 100. Low- income neighborhoods, which have fewer trees and parks, tend to be hotter than their wealthier counterparts. Cooling the air requires large amounts of energy, and the harder an AC unit works, the more power it pulls from the grid. That means that the household’s electricity demand goes up along with the outside temperature, as does the overall demand As the temperature shot up, thermostats triggered on the grid. AC systems can account for as millions of air-conditioning units — in households able much as 65% of the total demand on the to afford them — pulling the hot air out of homes, busi- power grid during extreme heat events. nesses and institutions, only to blow it outside. All of that extra hot air actually exacerbates the urban heat island effect: It raises the ambient temperature, thereby increasing the need for air conditioning and creating a vicious cycle within the greater feedback loop.

20 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Long, sunny summer days are great for solar power, enabling solar plants to crank out the juice throughout the middle of the day. But that output starts falling around 4 p.m., just when the temperature — and the AC — really starts cooking. And solar has its own issues with climate change: Wildfire smoke last year caused significant declines in California’s solar output.

Nuclear and fossil fuel power plants use billions of gallons of water each year for cooling and steam generation, further stressing the drought-depleted West. And the warmer the water, the less efficient the power plants are. Some nuclear plants have been forced to shut down because the cooling water wasn’t doing the job. The opposite problem plagues the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California: It sends its warm cooling water back to the Pacific Ocean, affecting the marine ecosystem there.

With hydropower on the wane and solar drop- Power lines work less efficiently in high heat and some- ping off in the late afternoon, grid operators times sag, break and come into contact with vegetation. tend to turn to natural gas combined cycle This can cause malfunctions, shorts and sparks that ignite plants to follow the climbing load, along with wildfires, which, in turn, can take out transmission lines. peaker plants — gas-powered jet-engine-like turbines that can be ramped up quickly — to cover the critical time before sunset. But these plants are expensive to operate and emit carbon dioxide. And methane — a potent greenhouse gas — leaks out when the natural gas burned in the plant is extracted, processed and transported. More natural gas being consumed causes natural gas prices to shoot up, which may encourage utilities to turn to polluting coal power plants in order to save on fuel costs.

Sources: California Independent System Operator (CAISO); Energy Information Administration; California Clean Energy Almanac; Bonneville Power Administration.

If demand outpaces supply, grid opera- Illustrations by Abbey Andersen / HCN tors may need to shed load, or implement rolling blackouts, to restore the balance. Power may also be shut off during times of high fire danger to avoid catastrophic wildfires like the ones that have scorched Cali- The best way to avoid a heat-caused collapse fornia in recent years. of the grid is to slow human-caused climate change by cutting carbon emissions. That requires decarbonization of the grid by replacing fossil fuels with clean energy sources and — just as important — an overall reduction in energy use. In the absence of this, however, we can only make homes more energy-efficient, develop and deploy more efficient air-conditioning systems, better integrate the power grid to make it easier to ship California solar eastward and Wyoming wind westward, and bolster the amount of rooftop solar with battery systems at homes and businesses. Oh, and we can also turn out the lights when we don’t need them.

AUGUST 2021 21 HCN COMMUNITY HCN readers: Funding our work for 50 years THANK YOU. HCN readers provide more than 75% of our operation costs. You can join this list of dedicated supporters by giving $50 or more. Send checks to P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428, call: 800-905-1155 or give online at hcn.org/give2hcn

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Anita Jackson with her spouse and children at I find the vastness of life and land in the West, with all our Yosemite National Park, California. contradictions and all our magic.” –Anita Jackson, San Ramon, California

myths. Thank you!” –Brendon Kehoe, Boise, Idaho

24 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS HCN COMMUNITY vocate, Fátima is a mother of three, and enjoys weightlifting, gardening and hiking. Kara Teising of Nashville, Tennessee, is a managing director at Koya Partners, a national, mission-driven executive search firm committed to keeping diversity, equity and inclusion at the center of the search Our never process. She spent 17 years as a professional matchmaker, specializing in partnering with national conservation and environmental boring board organizations, including HCN. The youngest child of a career Navy officer, Kara grew up in the West and loves exploring the region with HIGH COUNTRY NEWS HAS BEEN her two young children. BLESSED with a dedicated, ever-changing Andrea Otáñez of Seattle, Washington, a group of volunteers who have helped us navi- lifelong devotee of the high-desert country, has gate the tricky waters of the rapidly changing worked as a reporter, copy editor, team editor West for five decades now. They make up our and columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune and Board of Directors, and we honor them all — The Seattle Times. She is currently an associate past, present and future. teaching professor in the Department of Com- We were saddened to hear that Farwell munication at the University of Washington, Smith of Big Timber, Montana, who served on Seattle, where she has developed courses in HCN’s board in the 1990s, passed away in June race, gender and equity, focusing on critiquing at the age of 94. Farwell, the first member who the rituals of journalistic objectivity and the truly understood finances and fundraising, media representation of Latinx people. was instrumental in creating a small financial Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confeder- reserve for HCN. He enlivened many a board ated Tribes) lives in San Clemente, California, meeting with his wicked sense of humor; as and is a lecturer in American Indian studies a young man, he and his Harvard roommate, at California State University San Marcos. writer George Plimpton, crashed the Boston She teaches courses on environmentalism Marathon. According to the Bozeman Chronicle, and American Indians, traditional ecological Farwell ducked in just before the finish line, knowledge, religion and philosophy, Native sprinting to finish third before jumping into a women’s activism, decolonization, and Ameri- getaway car driven by Plimpton. can Indians and sports, especially surfing. She Brian Beitner, who steps down from the is also the author of two books, including As board this month after four years, has con- Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for tinued in Farwell’s footsteps: As chair of both Environmental Justice from Colonization to the Finance and Fundraising committees, he Standing Rock. has revamped HCN’s investment strategies And finally, we welcomeBryan Pollard and encouraged the organization to develop back to the board. Bryan spent the last six a more systematic approach to major donor months as an HCN staffer, leading our Indige- work — putting the “fun” back in fundraising, nous Affairs desk. As Editor-in-Chief Jennifer as he’s often quipped. It has paid off splen- Sahn put it, “He didn’t just hold down the IAD, didly — we are completing a successful 50th he put processes and systems and guidelines Anniversary Campaign — and we will miss in place to allow this work to flourish into the HCN’s new board members (from top) Fátima Luna, Kara Teising, Andrea Otáñez, Dina Gilio-Whitaker. Brian’s leadership. future.” He also helped us find our next IAD This month, we are delighted to an- editor, Nick Martin, a member of the Sappony nounce the most recent additions, voted in at Tribe of North Carolina, who starts this month. our June board meeting: Nick comes to HCN with substantial expe- Fátima Luna of Tucson, Arizona, serves rience as a writer and a producer of projects as the climate and sustainability policy advisor and story packages at Deadspin, Splinter, The for Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, leading the Washington Post and, most recently, The New development and implementation of the city’s Republic, where he has penned several smart climate action plan. She worked as the envi- stories a week for the past two years. Our hiring ronmental and natural resource economist for panel was especially impressed with Nick’s the Sonoran Institute in the Water and Ecosys- big-picture thinking and his ideas for how to Nick Martin joins tem Restoration program (formerly known as make HCN’s Indigenous affairs coverage stand the HCN staff as the new leader of the Colorado River Delta Program). In addition out from that of other outlets. Welcome aboard, our Indigenous to being a racial and environmental justice ad- all! —Paul Larmer Affairs desk.

DECEMBERJANUARYAUGUST 20202021 25 EDUCATION MARKETPLACE

26 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS AUGUST 2021 27 EDUCATION MARKETPLACE

28 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS AUGUST 2021 29 SUCKED DRY As a Minnesota mega-dairy expands into the West, aquifer levels reach a dangerous low.

By Debbie Weingarten and Tony Davis The Coronado Dairy on Kansas Settlement Road in the Minnesota photos by Ackerman + Gruber southeast corner of Arizona. Riverview LLP, a Minnesota- based dairy, has been buying up land and drilling new Arizona photos by Roberto (Bear) Guerra wells to grow feed for its cattle. Lucas Foglia

30 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS IN THE WINTER OF 2018, Laura Lynn moved out of her mobile home in Sunizona, an unincorporated community in southeast Arizona. After more than six years, she was tired of hauling water for drinking and bathing, and she couldn’t afford to drill a Iwell — certainly not one deep enough to survive the impending squeeze once a nearby mega-dairy began to operate. Lynn’s story epitomizes the challenges local residents are facing over the ongoing water crisis in this rural community, a problem that wors- ens every year and that no person or agency has figured out how to solve. She is one of hundreds of people, mostly low- to middle-income, living in a high-desert landscape whose groundwater is rapidly disappearing as water is pumped to grow alfalfa, corn, nuts, wheat and barley. But the greatest pressure on the region’s aquifer comes from Riverview LLP, a Minnesota-based dairy company whose groundwater pumping is seen by many as the primary cause of their drying wells. Far away in Kerkhoven, Minnesota, farmers Jim and LeeAnn VanDerPol have watched as their community lost many of its residents following decades of shrinking agricultural margins and increased corporate consolidation in the livestock sectors. Their former neighbors have been replaced by the five huge Riverview facilities within 10 miles of their house. In Chokio, Minnesota, about an hour away, locals successfully fought to keep Riverview from building a 9,200-cow dairy, citing concerns about pollution and groundwater decline. Smaller dairy farmers nationwide have weathered years of milk prices below the cost of production that culminated in an industry-wide economic crisis. Now they face a new adversary: mega-dairies, or dairy CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). In Franklin, southwest of Minneapolis, James Kanne struggles to hang onto SUCKED his small family dairy even as mega-dairies like Riverview compete for the few remaining milk processors. This investigation follows Riverview’s rapid DRY expansion in two of the five states it operates in, linking the environmental and economic consequences — and the lives of those who are impacted. As a Minnesota mega-dairy expands The people we spoke with in Minnesota and Arizona are 1,500 miles apart, connected only by into the West, aquifer levels the ever-growing presence and power of Riverview. reach a dangerous low. But their communities have much in common: The local industry and resources have been monopo- lized by a deep-pocketed entity. The groundwater is By Debbie Weingarten and Tony Davis being depleted and polluted. Incessant traffic, dust, lights and the stench of livestock cause home values Minnesota photos by Ackerman + Gruber to plummet and strain the emotional ties locals have Arizona photos by Roberto (Bear) Guerra to the places they call home.

AUGUST 2021 31 SUNIZONA, ARIZONA — On Arizona, just down the road, and it a winter evening in 2020, Laura would be drilling deep, she said. Lynn stood behind the counter of At the time, Lynn was earning the Days Inn in Willcox, Arizona, minimum wage as a home-care where she worked as a desk clerk. aide for elderly and disabled Inside the quiet lobby — the patients. She was living paycheck walls decorated with paintings of to paycheck, and far from alone: cowboys, the continental break- In 2019, according to the census, fast bar closed for the night — she Sunizona’s annual median house- spoke resolutely about the previ- hold income was $22,500 — just ous decade, during which she had over 61% of the median household tried desperately to make a life income in Willcox, 30 minutes for her family in an increasingly north, and just 38% of the state’s. parched landscape. Lynn could not afford a new Lynn and her six children well. She was also worried about moved to Sunizona in 2011 from St. the new mega-dairy and the traffic David, about 55 miles away. They and other problems she thought needed to find someplace cheap, it might bring. Ultimately, it was Lynn said, so they bought 2.5 all just too much; she decided to acres for $3,600. “I liked the rural leave. In 2018, she gave the prop- atmosphere, but our main thing erty to a close friend from church was that it was an emergency, and and moved to Willcox, where she it was inexpensive,” recalled Lynn. got the job at the Days Inn. Her new “It was what we could afford with property has two wells. our tax refund.” Though several years have In Sunizona, population 212, passed since she left Sunizona, tract, manufactured and mobile Lynn is still angry about what homes border dirt roads and the happened. She said Riverview suck- state highway that leads to the ing up the water was a major factor Chiricahua Mountains. Sunizona in driving her and many of her has a mini-mall, a café, an elemen- neighbors away. “Too many people tary school, a laundromat and a are afraid of saying anything,” she couple of churches, but no post said, her voice taking on a passion- office — not even a convenience ate edge. “I believe business runs store. America, and when the big guy is The Lynns first moved two taking a precious resource like RVs and a van, then a mobile home, water — that I’m against.” onto their land, but the property lacked electricity and had no well. NOBODY KNOWS HOW MANY Years later, the family managed to wells have dried up in Sunizona, get electricity, but water remained let alone the entire Willcox Basin, a problem. Almost every day for which covers 1,911 square miles six years, Lynn and her children in Arizona’s southeast corner, walked to a church a mile and a near the New Mexico border. But half away, where they, and 12 other between 2014 and 2019, records families, filled 1-gallon jugs with from the Arizona Department of water from a hose. Water Resources (ADWR) show that “It was a real hassle, but you around 20 wells in the Sunizona gotta do what you had to do,” Lynn area were deepened after drying said. “I had kids and I had to make up. In the entire basin during that sure they were watered.” time, records show that 57 wells The family wanted their own were deepened, but interviews aquifer here has accelerated since Thousands of dairy cows crowd well. But it wouldn’t be cheap: and anecdotal accounts place the Riverview’s arrival. The company the Coronado Dairy’s feedlot in the Kansas Settlement area Lynn said the well drillers told her number at more than 100. has drilled about 80 wells in near Sunizona, Arizona (top). it would cost about $40,000. Water While pinning the decline of the Willcox Basin since January Cattle graze in a pasture on was already scarce and demand any individual well on a neigh- 2015, and added six more in the the VanDerPol family farm in was growing: Riverview would boring well or wells is next to Douglas Basin, just to the south, Kerkhoven, Minnesota. The family grows organic crops, hogs, soon begin construction on Turkey impossible, evidence is mounting since it started buying land there grass-fed cattle and free-range Creek Dairy, its second dairy in that the decline of the underground in October 2020. Most of the wells laying hens (bottom).

32 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS has purchased nearly 51,000 acres Uhlman, a retired University of in the Willcox and Douglas basins, Arizona hydrologist, said. “Too according to Cochise County land many entities have moved in to records, spending more than $180 pump the free water. Take what you million, nearly all in cash. Much of want; all you need is the money to the property was existing farmland drill a well, the deeper the better.” the dairy company bought to grow According to Wulf, however, feed for its cows. Riverview didn’t come to Arizona The Coronado Dairy is now because of the lack of water regu- home to 70,000 Jersey-cross heif- lations; it was attracted by the dry ers, young cows that have not yet climate and the large amount of lactated. To drive down Kansas available farmland. “Because water Settlement Road is to watch an usage and conservation is import- entire mile of them tick by like a ant to us, no matter where we’re flipbook: honey-brown ears, big located, the water use regulation doe-eyes, flicking tails. In a barn set in Willcox was not a determining back from the road, another 7,000 factor,” he said. “We think about dairy cows are milked twice daily. water and talk about water every- When night falls, high- where we’re at.” powered floodlights illuminate the feedlot. It is the only such lighting MORRIS, MINNESOTA — The in a place known for its dark skies sunrise bled orange over the icy and glittering stars, and members Pomme de Terre River and farm of the local astronomy club say that fields glittering with new February it has impacted stargazing. When snow. Inside Riverview LLP’s flag- asked about the light pollution, ship dairy, 10,000 cows waited for though, Wulf said Riverview uses the feed truck. Some curled their significantly fewer lights here than long black tongues around the it does in the Midwest. railings of their pens, but mostly In 2019, the company built the they idled quietly, something Turkey Creek Dairy, a few miles that Natasha Mortenson — who north of Sunizona. It’s even larger, works in community outreach and with 17,000 small white hutches education for Riverview — cited as are at least 1,000 feet deep, and Church in Tucson had put out a call housing calves from 2 to 90 days old. evidence of their contentment. three are close to half a mile deep for new members, and Riverview’s At full capacity, it will hold 9,000 At one end of the barn, preg- — deeper than any other well in Arizona operations were expand- dairy cows and 120,000 heifers. nant cows stood in isolated birthing the area. Many of them lie near ing. The landscape is very different, Riverview’s critics say the pens; a placenta lay in the bedding Sunizona’s barren wells. he said, but “if you’re doing what Minnesota corporation was drawn near one postpartum cow, glisten- Kevin Wulf, a spokesperson you know God wants you to do, here by the same freewheeling ing the red-purple of mammalian for Riverview, acknowledges that anywhere is great and can be an political climate that has brought birth. In the “nursery,” one still-wet the dairy’s water use is a factor, but awesome place.” so many pistachio and pecan farm- calf, its umbilical cord dangling, he insists it’s hardly the only one In just a few years, Riverview ers to the valley from California and wobbled against a worker, who to blame. has utterly transformed the appear- other states. In Arizona, there are tilted back its small brown head “I get it,” Wulf said as he led ance and economy of the Willcox no regulations concerning how to insert a tube of colostrum that reporters on a tour of the dairy in Basin. The company bought out much water farmers can pump would reach all the way to its early 2020. “We’re the big target.” nearly 30 local farmers and easily in rural areas. The groundwater stomach. Wulf, a clean-cut former elemen- became the basin’s biggest grower. pumping in five urban areas in At just a day old, the calves tary school teacher, looked out at It employs 200 people in Arizona the state’s midsection, including will be strapped into tiny vests, the 90-cow milk carousel, which and has even built on-site hous- Phoenix and Tucson, is controlled machine-lifted into a semi-truck, turned slowly like a merry-going for the foreign workers among and metered under the Arizona and transported 10 miles away to round. “The rumor is: You’re here them. Groundwater Management Act, the company’s calf facility. A few to suck the valley dry. And then In January 2015, Riverview a pioneering state law passed 40 days later, they are trucked more you’re going to leave. We don’t want paid $38 million in cash to buy the years ago. But that law bypassed than 1,000 miles to New Mexico to do that.” Coronado Dairy, a locally owned rural areas entirely; it doesn’t even (if bound for the beef market) or In the spring of 2018, Wulf operation in the Kansas Settlement require water-use metering. Arizona (if destined for dairy). and his wife, who are members of area, about 10 miles north of “The only reason the water The Riverview company was the Apostolic Christian Church in Sunizona. It also bought 6,474 acres tables are dropping is because more started by the Fehr family, who Morris, Minnesota, relocated to of surrounding land. entities are pumping — because began a crop and beef farm in Arizona. The Apostolic Christian As of publication, the company there are no rules,” Kristine 1939. In 1995, seeing opportunity

AUGUST 2021 33 in the dairy industry, they established their first 800-cow dairy and became an LLP, a status that allowed for multiple owner/investors. One of those investors was the Wulf family, some of whose members attended the same church — the Apostolic Christian Church — and owned a beef cattle operation. In 2012, Riverview offi- cially merged with Wulf Cattle. Today, Riverview has three linked but separate divisions — dairy, beef and crop — and at least 25 facilities across five states: Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico and Arizona. Throughout the Morris dairy, laminated posters remind employ- ees to BE KIND and BE SAFE — referring to animal treatment and export-oriented commodity and workplace safety — and list production. He famously encour- the company’s core values: Candor, aged farmers to “plant fencerow to Integrity, Keep it Simple, Spirit of fencerow” and “get big or get out.” Humility, and Strong Work Ethic. Donald Trump’s secretary of Riverview’s Kevin Wulf said each Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, echoed core value is biblically inspired. these sentiments at the 2019 World “Candor, for example, means being Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, open with one another, not talking a state that lost 10% — more than about each other, but talking to 800 — of its dairy farms that year. each other for better understand- “In America, the big get bigger and ing,” he said. “Integrity is about the small go out,” said Perdue. “It’s doing the right thing. Knowing that very difficult on economies of scale God is always watching.” with the capital needs and all the But Riverview was at the environmental regulations and center of a 2019 Milwaukee Journal everything else today to survive Sentinel investigation into the milking 40, 50, 60 or even 100 cows.” trend of U.S. dairy farms abusing approximately 390,000 pounds Despite a 55% nationwide the TN visa program by recruiting of milk per day, enough to fill six decrease in dairy farms between college-trained Mexican veter- tanker trucks. The company said 2002 and 2019, cow numbers have inarians for high-skilled jobs as that all of its milk goes to make held steady while fluid milk volume animal scientists — only to give cheese. “We’re really bullish with has increased, the result of fewer them various low-skilled jobs, the market,” Mortenson said. farms operating on larger scales. such as milking cows or clean- In the past four decades, the Between 2012 and 2017, Minnesota ing. And, according to OSHA livestock industry has undergone lost 1,100 dairy farms. Meanwhile, documents, three of Riverview’s an enormous transformation. during those five years, Riverview foreign workers have been killed Farms have become larger, more built three Minnesota mega- dairies, in work-related accidents; in each mechanized and more consol- a feedlot in South Dakota, and case, the company was fined for idated. In the U.S., a handful started calf and dairy operations safety violations. (According to of companies produce the vast in New Mexico and Arizona. Wulf, Riverview has reduced its majority of beef, pork and poultry. Linda Rieke, James Kanne’s At first glance, it seems reck- OSHA-recordable incident rate For those studying consolidation daughter, feeds calves as her less for a dairy company to expand to 0.98%.) trends, it seems clear that dairy is sons, Connor, 6, and Kobe, 3, during a dairy crisis. But experts look on at the family dairy farm Mortenson said that the next. in Franklin, Minnesota (top). point to what happened in the hog Fehrs were particularly intrigued Modern U.S. agriculture was An aerial view of Riverview’s and poultry industries in the 1990s, by dairy operations in the South, hugely influenced by Earl Butz, flagship dairy outside of Morris, saying it’s a tried-and-true strategy which were much larger than secretary of Agriculture under Minnesota. Riverview has three to capture the market when it’s divisions — dairy, beef and crop traditional Midwestern dairy farms. Presidents Nixon and Ford, who — and owns at least 25 facilities depressed. The Morris dairy alone produces championed corporate agriculture in five states (above). “Whether it’s pork or chickens

34 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS or turkeys in the past, that’s how community did fight back, orga- state legislators to eliminate the differently,” she said. “Like in they all took over,” James Kanne, a nizing against Baker Dairy, a Citizens’ Board. retirement, you are always aware sixth-generation small dairy farmer 9,000-cow operation proposed “Soon after voting to require that your savings account is nonre- in Franklin, Minnesota, said. “They by Riverview. “I never was one an EIS on Riverview, in the dark of newable, and you spend with care.” expanded when the market was of those that took on a cause and night, at the end of a session on a Surrounded by five mountain down. And then when the market became vocal, but I didn’t have a bill unrelated, without any hear- ranges, the Willcox Basin’s aquifer came back up, none of the little choice,” said Chokio resident Kathy ings or public debate, the Citizens’ amounts to a bountiful savings guys could get back in again.” DeBuhr, who was shocked to learn Board was abolished,” Riddle said. account. Before large-scale agricul- And Riverview is not done that the huge dairy would be built “So that told me that Riverview has tural pumping began around 1940, growing. A crop farmer in Dumont, just a mile from her house. tremendous political influence up to 97 million acre-feet of ground- Minnesota, who asked to remain DeBuhr had many concerns — over both parties.” water was stored there, according to anonymous because of the small milk tankers chewing up the roads, Kevin Wulf said that while the a 2018 ADWR report — enough to community, said that a Riverview increased dust, air and water pollu- denial of the Baker permit was the supply Tucson, the nearest major official visited his home and shared tion, and the strain on the aquifer catalyst for the elimination of the city, for 970 years and then some. plans to build a 24,000-cow dairy — but the biggest one was being board, Riverview was “not involved The abundant groundwa- one mile away. The official offered downwind of so many cows. “I don’t in that pressure or in that process.” ter has long attracted farmers to buy the farmer’s corn for feed, think I would have been able to sell and ranchers, as has the unique and to sell manure to him as fertil- my house.” SUNSITES, ARIZONA — At composition of the aquifer itself. izer, but the farmer declined. “I The Baker Dairy proposal was the Sunsites Community Unlike most groundwater basins said, ‘I’m not very interested in that, slated for an August public hear- Center, 12 miles east of Sunizona, in Arizona and throughout the because you’re not paying enough ing before the Citizens’ Board, approximately 50 people sat in Southwest, the Willcox Basin’s for the product, and you’re charging the decision-making arm of the folding chairs, their eyes trained on aquifer is largely fresh below the too much for the manure.’ ” Minnesota Pollution Control Kristine Uhlman, the hydrologist, first, salty 100 feet, said Uhlman. The farmer was also horrified Agency (MPCA). Since 1967, eight as she flipped through a PowerPoint There may be several thousand feet by the idea of so many cows so members of the public and the presentation. The workshop, in of fresh groundwater underneath. close to his home: the odor and air MPCA commissioner have been February 2020, was about a topic But between 1940 and 2015, quality, wear and tear on the roads, tasked with reviewing indus- of intimate concern to attendees: extensive pumping by farmers seri- manure leaching into the streams try proposals and determining The health and future of the aquifer ously depleted the savings account and rivers, and the demand on the whether to require additional envi- beneath their feet. of the Willcox Basin, removing 6.2 groundwater supply. “It’s scary ronmental impact studies. Like most southern Arizona million acre-feet of groundwater they’re going to come in here and “No one thought we had a aquifers, the Willcox Basin aquifer and lowering the aquifer by 200 to suck that much water from the chance at all of influencing the is basically a big tub, composed of 300 feet, the ADWR report said. ground,” he said. Citizens’ Board,” said DeBuhr. fill eroded from the surrounding The sharpest declines were in According to research by But Jim Riddle, who served mountain ranges, Ulhman said. the Kansas Settlement area, where Dara Meredith Fedrow, a gradu- two years on the board, wrote in With every monsoon storm, the Riverview’s Coronado Dairy now ate student at the University of an op-ed that Riverview’s proposal fill material is reworked, carry- lies, although they were recorded Montana, Riverview used more had multiple unresolved issues. ing finer grains of silts and clays before Riverview arrived. No than 570 million gallons of water Among other things, it lacked data toward the center of the basin, and comprehensive analysis of water- in 2017 — about one-quarter of the on how its “massive water draw- leaving coarser sands and gravels level declines has been done since total consumption by hog and dairy down would impact existing crop at the edge. 2015. But a former ADWR official CAFOs in Minnesota. and livestock farms in the area.” To explain the aquifer’s rapid said that the rate of decline appears The Dumont-area farmer The board voted unanimously to decline, Uhlman used an everyday to have increased since then, to also questioned Riverview’s require a full environmental impact metaphor — a savings account. 3 to 5 feet per year in the entire “never-ending supply of money” at statement. “If your water is old, and it’s Willcox Basin, compared to 2 to 4 a time when so many dairy farmers After the EIS was ordered, not being recharged on a regular feet per year from 2010 to 2015. The are going out of business. Riverview withdrew its proposal, basis, that’s a savings account,” Sunizona area is also seeing signifi- The 24,000-cow dairy has not and the Baker Dairy was never Uhlman said, scanning the room. cant declines. yet been built but, according to built. For DeBuhr, the outcome was “You’re taking water out of a savings In 2015, basin water users state records, the company applied bittersweet. While it marked a rare account that’s not being recharged pumped about 240,000 acre-feet, for a permit to build a 10,500-cow win for ordinary people fighting big with routine input.” about four times more than the dairy approximately 130 miles business, there were consequences Ideally, your monthly salary aquifer gets in recharge, said Keith north of Dumont. Additionally, an for the Citizens’ Board. recharges your checking account, Nelson, an ADWR hydrologist who application for another 10,500-cow As reported in the Minnesota enabling you to plan with the oversaw the department’s 2018 dairy approximately 100 miles east Star Tribune, Riverview’s Brad predictability of a reliable income, study. Additional wells have since is up for state approval. Fehr “said the ruling prompted she said. This permits a specific been drilled, so the overdraft could “They never seem to stop,” the him to spend two weeks airing kind of spending, including depos- now be bigger, he said. farmer said. his concerns” with industry trade iting funds into a savings account. “Overpumping, or overspend- During the summer of groups. In turn, Riddle said, corpo- But “when you live off your savings ing from a savings account, means 2014, however, one Minnesota rate agricultural interests pressured account, you manage your money you don’t give a damn,” Uhlman

AUGUST 2021 35 said. “Or perhaps you have six to get enough water to irrigate one.” corporate consolidation of the night sky due to the 24/7 lights from months to live, and you don’t want But Salvail and Schmidt harbor hog industry, which drove prices the facilities. anyone to inherit what you worked no bitterness. “I’m glad (Riverview) down to 8 cents a pound. Those “In the wintertime here, espe- hard for.” came by,” Salvail said. “It helped years were “a confirmation of my cially when it’s still or quiet, (the The overpumping has driven me. I have no problems with them. politics,” Jim said. “And I got that stars) are so bright at night … I out a few farmers. As Riverview They gave me a decent offer.” from my dad, who always figured mean, it just goes on forever,” said drilled deeper, they feared they’d Schmidt said that the sale that anybody that wore a suit was Jim. But now, he said, “That place is also have to drill deeper — some- allowed him to leave before things on the other side (and) they’re all lit up like a Christmas tree.” thing they couldn’t afford. So they inevitably became worse. “If they out to get you.” Jim lifted his spoon and sold out to the dairy. wouldn’t have bought my farm, and Today, the VanDerPols can paused. “If people looked at the For 25 years, Glenn Schmidt they kept drilling the wells, I’d have drive for miles in any direction and stars more, they’d probably be able farmed cotton and alfalfa on 166 been out of business,” Schmidt said. remember the people who used to to see their way through to some acres, a mile south of Coronado In Arizona, even the farmers live and farm there. “I sometimes real solutions.” Dairy. Four years ago, he and his who praise Riverview as a good think the right way to say it is that A few days earlier, a thick fog wife, Linda, sold the land to the neighbor and job creator say they’re there are ghosts in the land,” Jim froze lace-like into the trees as dairy colossus for $1.3 million. worried because the local economy said. “It’s a lot lonelier than it was.” dairy farmers gathered in a pub “They were drilling deep wells now depends so heavily on it. John The new farm crisis has roiled in Greenwald, Minnesota, popula- right beside me,” Schmidt, who is Hart, who farms 10 miles north of farmers nationwide, and dairy tion 238. The occasion was a dairy 65, said. “At my age, I didn’t see how the Coronado Dairy, estimates that farmers arguably have been hit crisis meeting, co-hosted by the I could spend $2 million on new 70% of the basin’s economy is tied the hardest. Yet there are five giant Land Stewardship Project (LSP), a wells and try to compete. I had (a to agriculture, and that Riverview Riverview operations within 10 nearly 40-year-old nonprofit that well) that was 600 feet. The rest of owns one-third of the 60,000 to miles of the VanDerPols’ house and promotes sustainable agriculture them were 400- to 500-feet wells. 70,000 acres farmed in the basin. another within 15 miles. and an “ethic of stewardship.” Theirs are 1,200.” Riverview is by far the biggest Riverview’s Louriston Dairy, Event organizers expected 50 farm- Before Riverview’s arrival, employer in the area. home to 10,000 cows, is just two ers, but nearly 130 showed up. Schmidt’s profits and yields rose for “It’s kind of like Walmart miles away. The Star Tribune Every seat was taken, so farm- 10 years after he started planting moving into town,” Richard Searle, reports that its cows “drink enough ers leaned against a wall hung with new cotton varieties. “We weren’t a former county supervisor who water to drain an Olympic-sized paintings of ducks and spilled into ready to quit,” he said. “We’d just grows pistachios 15 miles from the swimming pool in just over two an overflow room. They signed got new equipment. When they Coronado Dairy, said. “If you have days, and produce enough manure postcards asking state legislators to started drilling those deep wells, it 20 farmers and one goes broke, it’s to fill one every three days.” place a moratorium on new dairies ruined my dream.” He had imag- not a huge impact. You have one “What impacts people doesn’t with more than 1,000 animal units ined renting his farm to his two entity like the dairy, and if they count for very much” in our soci- — “until the water pollution threat sons and living off the rent money. have a problem, it will have a huge ety, Jim said. That makes it hard to posed by these large operations and But, he said, “The boys had to leave, economic impact on the valley.” fight operations like Riverview. You the price-depressing effects of over- to go find jobs. One of them landed can point out that people are being production are both addressed,” in Kansas, one in Oregon.” KERKHOVEN, MINNESOTA— pushed out of business, schools Matthew Sheets, LSP’s farm crisis Joe Salvail also felt he had no Afternoon sunlight spilled into are under stress, communities are coordinator, said. choice in 2015 but to sell his land the living room through a window struggling, he said, “but those are A state bill was introduced after farming alfalfa for 19 years. still ringed in Christmas garlands, all people arguments, and they get in the Minnesota House of His well was dropping more than across a piano, a smattering of discounted.” Representatives in March 2020, 7 feet a year, and the water level books and the suspender-clad He has more faith in the land but stalled in committee. If passed, hovered at 480 feet deep. A new shoulders of Jim VanDerPol. itself fighting back. “It seems to it would have prevented new or well would have cost him $125 per Outside, a few beef cows ambled me that the thing that’s apt to tear expanded dairies with more than foot. “I knew I was going to have to across a snowy pasture. VanDerPol, Riverview apart … (is) the need to 1,000 animal units until June 2024. eventually put in a new well,” he 73, grew up in this farmhouse, and pay more particular and more indi- The meeting served said. “I didn’t have the money to returned to it in the 1970s with his vidual attention to every square as a somber eulogy for the do it.” wife, LeeAnn. They raised their foot of the earth as we’re using it.” family-owned dairies lost in recent Shortly before Salvail sold children here, and then began their One day, he said, we’ll realize that: years — and a rallying cry on behalf almost all of his 320 acres to own small farm business, Pastures “No, we can’t milk dairy cows that of those still hanging on. Mega- Riverview for just over $1 million, A Plenty, which today sells grass- way, because it costs the earth too dairies are partly to blame for the the company drilled a new well just fed beef and pork to restaurants much.” industry-wide economic crisis; a half-mile north of his land. “They and customers across Minnesota. As they sat at their kitchen their massive overproduction of went down 1,300 feet, and they’re The VanDerPols used to be table, the VanDerPols talked about milk has saturated the market, driv- pumping 1,800 gallons a minute surrounded by working family the tangible and intangible costs ing down prices well below the cost out of that well now,” he said. farms, but the 1980s farm crisis of Riverview’s arrival: the loss of production. “They’re irrigating with (multiple) drove many of them out of business. of neighbors, the still-unknown Richard Levins, professor center pivots pulling water from Then came the ruinous drought environmental impacts, and the emeritus of applied economics that well, and I was having trouble of 1988. And the 1990s brought already-noticeable change to the at the University of Minnesota,

36 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS addressed the room in a soft voice. not easy. His daughter and son-in- aquifer has dropped faster since “Unfortunately, the ‘there’s room law recently returned to the farm to Riverview’s arrival. The Arizona for everybody’ argument doesn’t help. “This morning, I was brush- Department of Water Resources work so well in dairy,” he said. “It’s ing my granddaughter’s hair before monitors 49 “index” wells in the a matter of simple mathematics.” she was getting ready to get on the Willcox Basin annually. Of these, Bringing in a 5,000-cow dairy bus, and this evening we will have 37 declined faster from 2015 to doesn’t increase the demand for supper together.” He paused. “And 2020 than from 2010 to 2015, while milk, he explained — it simply that is what we need. We need 12 declined at a slower rate or rose replaces 50 100-cow dairies. “We’re family. We need community.” during the more recent period. playing musical chairs.” Heads nodded across the At High Country News’ request, Some see the loss of small packed room. Thomas Meixner, the University dairy operations as inevitable. In of Arizona’s hydrology and atmo- February 2018, Marin Bozic, a AGRICULTURAL WATER use spheric sciences department head, dairy economist at the University jumped in the Willcox Basin reviewed the index well data and of Minnesota, testified before through the 1960s into the middle said that, in general, “The decline the state agriculture committee 1970s, peaking at over 300,000 in water levels appears to be on behalf of Minnesota Milk, an acre-feet a year. Then, water use accelerating (since 2015). It’s not industry trade group. “I anticipate crashed through the 1980s and uniform. Different wells do behave out of 3,000 dairy farms left in the 1990s to as low as 110,000 acre- differently. But on average, they are state, probably over 80% are last feet per year, as farming went going down at about 6 feet a year generation dairies,” Bozic said. into a national economic decline. now, compared to a little less than “We are going to see a number of Meanwhile, well levels in the basin 4 feet in 2015.” dairy farmers that are no longer fell so far that for many farmers it There’s no doubt that the competitive.” He cited Riverview as was no longer economical to pay for Southwest’s protracted drought, a “prime example” of a competitive pumping. aggravated by climate change, has business model. Starting around 2000, water also played a role, he said. But expanding isn’t an option use started rising again. It hit Altogether, southern Arizona’s for most dairies, Levins said in a 172,000 acre-feet by 2014, U.S. aquifers lost more than 5.7 million phone call. “That’s like telling a Geological Survey statistics show. acre-feet of water from 2002 to 2017, local hardware store to become a From 2015 through 2017, the most with both drought and agricultural Walmart. You can’t do it.” The story recent year statistics are available, pumping playing a role, according isn’t about small dairies getting agricultural water use rose 18.2%, to a study published last November bigger, he said. “It’s about enor- compared to an 8.7% increase from in the journal Water Resources mous operations coming in and 2012 to 2015. Research. putting everyone else out of busi- Riverview’s arrival and land But since pumping in the ness (because) there’s only so much purchases could have been a Willcox Basin has far exceeded the business to go around.” contributing factor in the increase level of recharge, Meixner suspects And communities change in water use. Between January 2015 that it’s a bigger factor in the when agriculture consolidates, and the end of 2020, 407 new wells decline than drought and climate Levins said. It decreases “the were drilled in the basin; 19.6% change. economic activity on Main Street. of these were Riverview’s. The Riverview, however, said its And of course, it decreases the company also inherited hundreds water use is 25% less than that number of people that go to church, of existing wells through land of the farmers who previously go to school, go to the hospital, that purchases and now owns nearly farmed the same land, due to more sort of thing. So the consolidation 19% of the 799 wells registered in efficient irrigation methods. The in the dairy leads to consolidation the basin from 2014 through 2019. company has installed two types in all of those services as well.” Some individual wells in the of nozzles on each of its 200 irri- At the meeting, dairy farmer Kansas Settlement and Sunizona gation center-pivots. Wulf said James Kanne described himself as areas have shown some of the worst they manually switch them out a “survivor,” the last of the dairies declines in Arizona, Frank Corkhill, throughout the growing season. still operating from his childhood. ADWR’s now-retired chief hydrol- “That takes a lot of work,” he said. He said mega-dairies compete ogist, said. One Kansas Settlement “It’s labor-intensive.” directly with small dairy farmers well dropped 30 feet between 2015 Anastasia Rabin lives in Riverview works with a third- Elfrida, Arizona, where her for the few remaining processors. and 2017, while another dropped farm is now almost completely party hydrologist to monitor its And while processors charge small 45 feet between 2014 and 2017. Two surrounded by Riverview LLP- wells to better understand what is dairies to pick up their milk, they wells each fell 17 feet in 2017 alone owned properties (top). James happening in the aquifer, he said. pay premiums to mega-dairies that — one in Kansas Settlement and one Kanne on his family farm in “We recognize the value of Franklin, Minnesota (center). Jim deliver tankers’ worth of product. in Sunizona, Corkhill said. VanDerPol on the family farm in water in Arizona and continually Kanne is hanging on, but it’s Records show that the Kerkhoven, Minnesota (bottom). search for new innovations to

AUGUST 2021 37 reduce water usage per acre.” compromise among the state’s grandfathered in, while new land- Peggy Judd, a Cochise County Even so, the company refuses warring mining, farming and owners would face strict limits on supervisor representing the to disclose its actual water use. urban interests, but got nowhere. future pumping. Most new wells Willcox Basin. Judd, a longtime Wulf calls it “our private business.” In desperation, Babbitt recalled, he would be reviewed to ensure that supporter of Riverview who lauds He also said Riverview favors gathered seven people represent- they wouldn’t dry up surrounding its economic benefits, opposed more regulation, including state ing all factions behind closed doors, wells. All well owners would be new regulations for years, calling legislation that would require where “we met twice a week, went required to install water meters them an intrusion on property metering of all rural wells — legis- through this line by bloody line, and report their use to the state. rights. She now supports them, lation that so far has gone nowhere. and ended the impasse.” Those using more than 35 gallons because the well declines are grow- And some question Riverview’s They split five areas of urban- per minute would have had to pay ing more severe. assertion of a 25% drop in water ized central and southern Arizona an annual fee, to be used for water She has formed a new working use. Two longtime farmers in the into state-run active manage- conservation programs. group to hammer out a water plan area, Salvail and Hart, say that ment areas, each with authority But the proposal ruptured the behind closed doors. Meanwhile, while many farmers who sold to to impose conservation rules on community, dividing neighbors three Sunizona residents who have Riverview generally grew one crop residents, businesses and farmers and friends, and it was ignored had to haul water or else deepen per year, Riverview has switched to living in the path of urban growth. when it reached the Legislature. their wells are trying to form a growing summer and winter crops, Once the group finished with “Today there is not much water district to tax homeowners boosting its water use. that, “we were so exhausted” that consensus to do anything,” Hart, to pay for a well system for the “They’ll put in a wheat crop rural areas were left out of the law, the farmer, said. “The guys leading community. and follow it with corn,” Hart Babbitt said. that effort in 2015 got so beat up For now, though, the water said. But Riverview isn’t the only This was just fine for many among their peers, nobody wants to outlook for the area where grower adding crop cycles; other rural leaders, including those from talk about it anymore. If anything is Riverview operates is gloomy at local farmers are following suit, the Willcox area, who didn’t want going to happen on the water issue, best. According to ADWR’s 2018 due to declining crop prices and to be regulated. Besides, at the time it has to come from the state.” groundwater study, which is based the increasingly popular practice “rural Arizona didn’t appear to be Kevin Wulf agrees. “We on a computer model, up to 24 of “cover-cropping” — planting in any immediate crisis,” Babbitt support state regulation,” he said million acre-feet of water will be non-food crops to enhance soil recalled. in a phone call. “We feel like it is pumped out of the entire basin by health and prevent erosion, he said. “We thought that eventually, more fact-based and less emotional. 2115, and water levels could fall by Many Sunizona residents say we will authorize ADWR to do We feel like if everyone is reporting as much as 917 feet in the Kansas Riverview’s conversion of thou- the same thing, in rural Arizona. water usage, we would have a lot Settlement area from 1940 to 2115. sands of acres of vacant land to We could not have been more more accurate picture of what is Even though as much as 78 million farmland has also boosted its mistaken. The statutes we passed happening around water.” acre-feet may remain, much of it water use. Wulf said that the land have proven to be unworkable for When Babbitt spoke in will be so deep that it may not be Riverview purchased was destined the rest of the state.” Sunsites last March, however, he practical to remove it. for tree or crop production. “We The Willcox Basin’s agricul- urged the Legislature to give county Big farmers like Riverview will will continue seeking ways to tural economy was so volatile for governments authority to develop be able to get water for a long time conserve water on the land we the next three decades that the lack their own water management plans. because they have the money to farm,” he said. of regulation didn’t seem to matter. While the 1980 Groundwater keep drilling deeper, Uhlman, the But by the middle 2010s, California Act was a top-down mandate, “most hydrologist, said. Homeowners AT A MARCH 2020 ground- tree-nut and alfalfa farmers were of the things we do in this state, in and smaller farmers won’t be as water presentation in Sunsites, relocating to the area, and many this country, in communities, start fortunate. Bruce Babbitt, former Arizona homeowners’ wells were drying up. the other way,” Babbitt said. “We “These companies have the governor and secretary of the In 2014, the state water agency held tend to address problems from local deep pockets to have longer straws Interior under Bill Clinton, was the a public meeting in Willcox, where governments on upward, to try to that go down deeper in the aquifer,” keynote speaker. He regretted that more than 50 people complained find consensus and a path forward. she said. “The individual family rural areas, including the Willcox about well problems. At least 40 It’s your future, your community, farmers who originally home- Basin, were left out of the 1980 homeowners completed question- your economy and your neighbors.” steaded the land — they can only Groundwater Management Act naires, describing how their wells But in both 2020 and 2021, go as deep as their pocketbooks.” when it passed under his direction. had dried up or appeared in danger. Arizona’s Legislature not only The root of that problem lies A group of farmers, ranchers, spurned bills like those that Babbitt ELFRIDA, ARIZONA — In May in the act’s drawn-out, highly rural residents and government suggested; it even refused to grant 2021, a rare storm obscured the complex creation — a process that officials then formed a working them committee hearings. The Dragoon Mountains behind a took years. group that spent months producing same fate awaited bills that would wall of rain. After a year of scant “That act didn’t just fall out of a carefully negotiated compromise have required water metering in precipitation — just 8.35 inches the sky. There was as much contro- proposal to create a groundwater rural areas or made it easier for the of rainfall in Willcox in 2020, versy then as there is now,” Babbitt conservation area for the basin. state to close off a water-imperiled compared to 12.18 inches in an said. Under the plan, those who area to new farmers. average year — the roadside grass A groundwater study commis- had pumped groundwater within The water forum at which remained golden-brown. sion spent three years trying to the last five years would be Babbitt spoke was organized by Thirty miles southwest of

38 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Riverview’s Coronado Dairy, KRISTINE UHLMAN RECALLED Anastasia Rabin stood in the yard that after she gave her water talk in next to her small herd of goats Sunsites, Gary Fehr, Riverview’s and scanned the horizon. She has board president, left her a phone lived in Elfrida for nearly a decade, message. He said that Riverview and watched as industrial farm- has a 30-year investment in the ing appeared in the valley. First area and wondered if the water it was corn, then the California- would run out sooner than that. owned nut operations — and now, “I told him no; as long as you Riverview. have the money to keep the deep In late October 2020, Riverview wells, you won’t run out of water,” purchased its first Elfrida property Uhlman said. — nearly 4,700 acres for $20 million. Wulf, however, said that Fehr Since then, Riverview has amassed was asking about the current wells a total of just over 9,100 Elfrida that Riverview is replacing, not acres for close to $36 million. Kevin hinting that the company would Wulf said Riverview plans to farm leave the area in 30 years. “The corn and wheat to feed its cows, but new wells we are drilling today “there are no current plans to build a will likely have a similar 30-year third dairy in the Elfrida area.” lifespan, which prompted the ques- A few months ago, Rabin started tion,” Wulf said. noticing land-use changes in the Wulf insists that in both immediate area. Many neighboring Arizona and Minnesota, Riverview farms have sold to new operations, “wants to be good neighbors.” most recently Riverview. The dairy “We sit at kitchen tables at now owns the grain bins towering in every single neighbor’s house,” the distance and the gravel quarry Riverview’s Natasha Mortenson next door. Across the road, newly said. “We do community meetings assembled irrigation pipes sprawled and allow people to come ask ques- across one of Riverview’s recently tions. We feed people burgers and purchased fields. When Rabin looks have a sit-down. Does that mean west across the valley, she can see a that every single neighbor loves flurry of activity: mesquite cleared, us? No, it does not mean that. But wells drilled, pivots installed and that’s life.” fields scraped bare. Loose sand and But dairy farmer James Kanne dirt have been pushed into enor- said that Arizona and Minnesota mous piles. are connected by a set of hidden Recently, Rabin woke to a costs, imposed by Riverview. dust storm. She stood in her yard “Whether it’s groundwater in and took a phone video of a wall Arizona, or freshwater that’s being of dust so thick that it blocked the compromised, or our roads being mesquite trees and mountains. abused ... it’s a matter of the cost “This spring, the dust storms were being put onto people who don’t a full-scale natural disaster,” Rabin even realize they’re paying the said, adding that such storms have price,” he said. “It’s a very insidious become more frequent since the way of doing business.” arrival of larger farms and the In both places, residents massive land clearing. She kicked are pleading with state and local at the ground, covered in several officials to do something — enact inches of beach-like sand, whorled groundwater pumping restric- in patterns by the wind. In some tions, or place a moratorium on places on her property, as much as large livestock operations. So two feet of sand has accumulated. far, though, no one appears to be “This is desertification in listening. Water pipes are piled near a new pivot irrigation system on land recently action,” Rabin said — the trans- acquired by Riverview LLP in Elfrida, Arizona (top). A sign in southeast formation of a once-biologically Arizona warns of the deep crevasses that can occur as the water table drops (center). Anastasia Rabin walks through a section of her property that she diverse landscape into a hotter, This article was supported by the said has been desertifying even more rapidly since the arrival of industrial drier and much less hospitable Economic Hardship Reporting agriculture in the area (bottom). environment. Project.

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40 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS AUGUST 2021 41 42 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS AUGUST 2021 43 (continued from page 11) “They say water is life, and it is — the federal government will begin is polluted, his family no longer “The river raises kids,” Real Bird you need water to stay alive. But laying pipes and building a treat- brings water up from its banks for said. The two reminisced about water also provides life for every- ment facility within the next five the sweat lodge; instead, they lug long, lazy days out at the river, thing else that keeps you alive.” years. “We will be that much closer it down from the house. The new running home with berry-stained to delivering clean water across our ritual is tinged with the knowledge lips and sunbaked skin. IN EARLY FEBRUARY, the Crow lands,” wrote Crow Tribal Chairman of what the river is now, compared The river holds deep cultural Tribe reached an agreement with Frank White Clay in an email to to what it has been and the uncer- and spiritual significance for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on a High Country News. “Having ready tainty of what’s to come. “I offer Wellknown Buffalo and Real Bird. new water system that would supply access to it will be a game changer prayers in the morning, even in the In the Sundance, a traditional treated water from the Bighorn River for thousands of our people across office,” Three Irons said. “Not only healing ceremony, participants to all tribal communities. The plan the reservation.” But while this for my family, but for the well-being are given a paste made from cattails, was first outlined in the Crow Tribe should provide clean water for Crow of tribal members here. I pray that found along the river, before they Water Rights Settlement Act of 2010, families, the river itself will remain we find a solution, or else we’re able break a days-long fast with river which also included legislation to under threat. And some who grew to figure out how to provide them water. At the sweat lodge, water improve irrigation infrastructure up here, like Three Irons, question with water at the current moment plays a central role, and, as chil- for farmers. Since then, the agency the feasibility of connecting all six — not five years from now.” dren, Wellknown Buffalo and Real has completed a couple dozen of the reservation’s political districts Working with other tribal Bird fed the river leftover food in irrigation projects. No progress — which span 2.3 million acres — to a members and scientists, he wants an act of prayer and respect. Now has been made on the new water single master water system. to track the exact sources of pollu- an Apsáalooke elder, Wellknown system, however. Shane Schieck, After visiting the Walkses’ tion in the river over the coming year. Buffalo is troubled by the state of the Bureau of Reclamation super- house in May, Three Irons stopped In the meantime, he’ll continue to water on the nation, especially its visor for the project, said the delay by his childhood home. He sat near visit homes like the Walkses’ to help implications for her grandchildren. was partly caused by high turnover his family’s sweat lodge, next to families secure clean, running water. “That was our way of life,” she said. among principal engineers. But it’s the Little Bighorn’s slow, snaking “It’s everything. It’s the bloodline for also because the agency’s irrigation currents and gangly cottonwood the reservation,” he said. “Wherever projects are “low-hanging fruit,” he trees. He recalled submerging there’s water, there’s going to be a In June, Apsáalooke youth at the said — smaller, less complex and himself in its waters, watching over lot of people around it. Hopefully, Guardians of the Living Water camp easier to build than an 800-mile the sweat lodge as a child, seeing they respect it, cherish it, take care learned how to conduct a water quality assessment on the Little Bighorn River water system. it burn down one day and, eventu- of it, revive it. Hopefully, we can in Crow Agency, Montana. Under the new agreement, ally, rebuilding it. Because the river clean it up for the future.” REVIEW

Neo-noir under smoke In Something New Under the Sun, climate change is the ultimate criminal backdrop.

BY PIPER FRENCH

Gabriella Trujillo / HCN

WE ALL KNOW THE FIRES ARE COMING, Kleeman entwines the threads of several comes off as an unsurprising, if nefarious, but we’ll pretend otherwise for as long as we established LA genres. In one sense, Something byproduct of a world with widening inequality can. By the time you read this, the sky above New Under the Sun is a frontier tale for the end and ever-diminishing resources, rather than Los Angeles will most likely be bad again: dark, of the Anthropocene. Patrick has gone west, as something in possession of its own propulsive acrid, laden with soot. But right now, as of this many have done before him, chasing a dream energy. Patrick and Cassidy eventually solve writing, it’s early June, and the air is clear. In LA, that will dissolve — quite literally — into smoke. the mystery, but it doesn’t matter. In the novel’s denial has its own season. For now, it lasts from The first few chapters are a funny, if clichéd, third act, Hollywood and the petty malfeasance November until July. send-up of Hollywood. (Cassidy is a former of human beings fall away, replaced by a series of In Something New Under the Sun, the latest child star most recently known for assaulting existential journeys into the unknown. Kleeman novel by the writer Alexandra Kleeman, this a paparazzo with a used tampon.) As Patrick has hinted at scenes of interpersonal resolution uneasy balance has been further disrupted by and Cassidy embark on a series of investigative — a romance, a reunion — throughout; now, she the acceleration of climate change. Now, the forays to marginal warehouses across LA, the forecloses on them. The narrative pulls away hills of California are on fire all year long. A bibli- novel becomes California neo-noir, tipping its from its tight focus on individual characters; cal drought has run the state dry, so its denizens hat to Raymond Chandler and Thomas Pynchon. instead, there is a recapitulation of the begin- drink WAT-R, a hyper-commodified substitute. Patrick is one of the genre’s less-compelling ning of life on earth, a memory of a kidnapping, The haves, meanwhile, keep bottles of genuine guides: Philip Marlowe if you replaced his grit a walk into the desert. This third-act upending of water from exotic and ever-diminishing ice with petulance, or Doc Sportello minus the both genre and conventional narrative structure shelves stashed away in their mansions in the loopy charm. But his neurasthenic passivity elevates the novel into something much stranger hills. In Kleeman’s world, the personal is polit- is an unsurprising response to a world whose and more transcendent than is obvious at the ical is ecological. Individual despair, systemic ills include not just greed and corruption but a outset. It is here that Kleeman really shines. corruption and eco-apocalypse all threaten, and world-historical catastrophe. Kleeman shows This dissolution recalls a scene that occurs denial persists unabated. how climate change is the ultimate noir subject: much earlier in the novel. As Patrick waits in Patrick Hamlin, the book’s protagonist, is Human action and inaction tragically combine the lobby of a Memodyne clinic, his mind oscil- a writer with one good novel to his name. He to produce a fate as sure as an incoming asteroid. lates rapidly between two dark suspicions: “the arrives in LA believing that he will creatively By the historian Mike Davis’ count, LA had ominous feeling he’s been having all week that consult on its film adaptation. Instead, he ends been destroyed 138 times in literature and film nobody is in charge, alternating with the fearful up a production assistant, watching helplessly as by 1998. But Patrick and Cassidy’s LA isn’t (yet) certainty that the ones in charge are not on my his magnum opus, a moody rumination on place the backdrop to all-out apocalypse — it’s just side.” Which of these is more terrifying: that our and loss, is turned into a schlocky horror movie. a world in which everything is several degrees overlords are evil, or that they’re asleep at the After Hamlin clashes with the film’s mercurial shittier. This is no longer the stuff of science wheel? What’s worse — a vengeful god, or no vedette, Cassidy Carter, the two form an uneasy fiction: We have all already had to get used to god at all? truce, teaming up to investigate a conspiracy a reality that is worse than it was, though we involving two purported film producers and a still have so much more to lose. “There was no host of mysterious “Memodyne” clinics crop- bottom to land on,” Cassidy thinks, “just grada- ping up across the city — there’s a strange new tions of badness that felt more like home the Something New Under the Sun malady going around, and young and old alike longer she dwelt in them.” Alexandra Kleeman are losing their memory. (Must be something in This inexorable slouch toward disaster 368 pages, hardcover: $28 the WAT-R. ...) lowers the stakes of the conspiracy, which Hogarth, 2021.

AUGUST 2021 45 Production still from Reservation Dogs. Shane Brown / FX

PREVIEW tion Dogs. He was in no hurry to get home: “I got a plumber in my house, so it’s perfect timing.” He was busy editing the last episodes for Reservation Dogs, which recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Harjo directed three There’s a new Indigenous TV show episodes, Navajo filmmakers Sydney Freeland and Blackhorse Lowe each directed two episodes, coming your way while Tazbah Chavez, who is a citizen of the Bishop Paiute Tribe, directed one. In fact, all the Reservation Dogs is the latest product of an exciting new era directors and writers are Indigenous, and Indige- of Native self-representation. nous people are involved at every level of production. It’s a genuine, one-of-a-kind breakthrough. BY JASON ASENAP The idea for the show came about when Harjo and his good friend, the multi-talented Maori creative force Taika Waititi, realized they both had interesting scripts that shared the SEMINOLE/MUSCOGEE CREEK filmmaker ago I would have been able to just shoot him a same themes. Waititi pitched an idea for a series — and now showrunner — Sterlin Harjo called me text and schedule a quick interview. (Full disclo- to FX. Harjo expected to hear back in about a from the cab of his pickup truck while he was out sure: Harjo and I are friends.) But now, given his year, assuming he was lucky, but his agents running errands around Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s a busy schedule, I had to go through his assistant contacted him just three days later with an offer. town he loves in a state he loves, the place where to schedule a meeting. Because of a time mix-up Reservation Dogs is a comedy about four he has made most of his films. And the feeling on my end — he was in Oklahoma; I was in New Indigenous teenagers in Oklahoma and the small is reciprocated; he now has a spot on the Okla- Mexico — Harjo Zoomed me from his phone. town/reservation mischief they get into. It’s based homa Walk of Fame, just in front of the city’s local While he drove, we talked about his exciting new on the kind of stories that Harjo and Waititi often art-house theater, Circle Cinema. Not too long coming-of-age project for FX Networks: Reserva- shared. “We always told each other stories from

46 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS home and laugh, and it’s always funny stories first episodes. But really it was just opening the when he spoke about the show. “It was all magic,” and never depressing shit. We wanted to reflect door for them. And trying to get them into TV he told me. “Productions like this don’t come that and make a show that was a comedy. There’s directing. It’s a hard racket to get into.” together this magically, but in this case it did, real issues that they deal with, but they handle Blackhorse Lowe is a Tulsa Artist Fellow. and everyone was just awesome which is very it through humor.” The four lead actors, who His first feature film, 5th World, premiered at unique. You don’t get that on most film sets — range in age from 14 to 17, are all Native American: Sundance in 2005, but Reservation Dogs is his there’s always something going on — but every- D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Ojibwe), Devery Jacobs first foray into directing for TV. I spoke to him one was just awesome.” (Kanien’kehá:ka Mohawk), Paulina Alexis (Alexis after he wrapped up shooting in Tulsa and was Reservation Dogs and the new Peacock TV Nakota Sioux Nation), and Lane Factor (Caddo getting ready to head to New Mexico to location series Rutherford Falls mark a new era of Indig- and Seminole Creek). scout for his next feature film. Lowe summed enous representation, in which Native people Selling the project proved easier than up his experience in a rush of long, excited are in the writers’ room telling the story as well expected, and Waititi was scheduled to shoot sentences that hinted at his larger feelings. as behind the camera, directing the action. Both the pilot, but then COVID-19 hit, and everyone “There are no words for me right now, but really series are comedies, but Reservation Dogs is the had to be sent home. “Of course, a Native show positive and excited and just looking forward more obviously cinematic of the two. “I think it’s happens, and a worldwide pandemic shut us to the show coming out and people seeing it important to have both shows,” Harjo said. “It’s down,” Harjo said wryly. But FX was commit- and receiving it in a positive way and seeing cool they have that different sort of vibe.” ted, and after a break, production resumed. something that hasn’t been seen before.” He There’s a fair amount of cross-pollination Because of the pause and the change in sched- recognizes how special the moment is. The two between the two shows. Devery Jacobs appears ule, however, Waititi was no longer available to episodes he directed feature two well-known in both, while Migizi Pensoneau (Ponca/Ojibwe) direct, so Harjo stepped in and took over the Indigenous actors, Gary Farmer and Wes Studi, has a role in Rutherford Falls and also writes pilot. When it was time to bring in other direc- and comedian Bill Burr, of whom Lowe is a for Reservation Dogs. Writer Tazbah Chavez tors, he looked no further than established fan, makes an appearance later in the season. works on both shows, as does Bobby Wilson filmmakers he already had confidence in. Just “There’s a whole lot of cool people in the show.” (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota), who both acts as Waititi had opened doors for Harjo, Harjo Directing for TV is quicker than directing for and writes. wanted to do the same for his fellow Native film- film; Lowe’s episodes of the 30-minute show had “It was crazy that FX let us do that,” Harjo makers. “Sydney is almost a freaking veteran to be completed in four days. “Nine pages a day,” reflected in his truck as he headed home for his of TV directing now, so I wanted her to be there Lowe said, adding that “with COVID restric- appointment with the plumber. “It was just kind to help set the tone. I wanted Blackhorse and tions, you’re only allowed 10 hours on set.” The of a dream come true.” Tazbah to shadow and see Sydney directing the schedule was fast-paced, but Lowe had a larger And it’s not over yet, not by a long shot. budget than he’s used to working with. Indie This is just the beginning of a new era of Native films, in comparison, are often a scramble: “We representation, Harjo believes. “It’s an excit- were always limited by funds, time, availability ing time right now,” he said. “There’s all these of people,” Lowe said, “whereas with TV, you’re shows coming out. There’s going to be a lot of Production still from Reservation Dogs (below left). given all the toys to play with, and the profes- shows, and all of them are different. That’s Shane Brown / FX sionals. So there really was nothing in my way what’s cool, and I think that’s what’s going to other than myself; the sky was the limit.” solidify our place in TV. Hollywood and the Sterlin Harjo, a Seminole/Muscogee Creek filmmaker, artist and podcaster, is one of the creators of Lowe generally likes to keep things close public is going to see there’s no end to the Reservation Dogs (below right). Shane Brown / FX to the vest, but his enthusiasm bubbled over stories that we have.”

AUGUST 2021 47 ESSAY were outside, we were free. When I was 8, we moved back to Ogden. As ever, my father was chasing work. He had recently remarried and now faced the prospect of providing for a bigger household: my step- mother, my brother, my two stepbrothers and me. One day, he told us he had an idea. He had visited a long-haul trucking company and asked them how they cleaned their trailers. He learned it was an expensive, complicated process. My father informed them he could do it for a frac- tion of the cost, and they agreed to give him a The fragile freedom of an open sky shot. In the following days, we accompanied him as he purchased a high-pressure water cleaner A writer remembers the joy — and pressures — of a childhood spent in Utah. and a leaf blower. He told us he had created a new kind of job. BY TOPE FOLARIN We often went to work with him. At first, we were awed by the seemingly endless parking lots and the rows and rows of identical trailers, each one dark and incomprehensibly large inside. He worked every day except Sunday, regardless ABOUT THREE MONTHS INTO THE PANDEMIC, we silently agreed we needed a break from the of the weather, and my brothers and I usually I found myself standing at the window of my process of taking a break. accompanied him. Sometimes we were pelted condo near downtown Washington, D.C., Everything had changed, but one change by rain and snow; sometimes, the sun burned cradling my newborn. Outside, the sun was took me by surprise. While I was stuck inside, through our thin clothes and marked its territory rising. The world seemed plastic. Nothing a few of my memories — memories that had on our backs. My father would leap into a trailer moved. Absent the usual commotion of honk- never surfaced before — became searingly vivid. with his leaf blower, run to the back, and blow ing cars, barking dogs and fast-walking humans, I burrowed into them whenever I had a spare the debris toward the mouth, where my broth- the empty thoroughfare was as quiet as a photo- moment. One in particular brought me great ers and I waited with plastic bags, collecting the graph, yet somehow eerie, as if a black-and- comfort, and as I stood at the window that morn- rotting food and wooden pallet shards and nails. white still of a barren nighttime scene had been ing, I summoned it, unsure why it was so mean- We’d stand back as he blasted the trailers’ ribbed colorized and converted into day. ingful. It was simple: My brothers and I pause floors with the high-pressure water. Then we’d I was on paternal leave, helping with our after a long day of playing basketball outside. pick through the gunk for more trash to dump newborn and a newly homebound 3-year-old, For some reason, as if on cue, we all turn to face into our bags, until, almost an eternity later, we and my wife was back at work, which meant the Wasatch Mountains. No one speaks, we just were finally done. she was back at her laptop. Like everyone else, stand there, and after an unnaturally long period In the summer, my father stopped cleaning we’d been forced to shrink and edit our lives to of silence — at least for three teenage boys — my trailers and sold ice cream instead. Every now fit inside four walls. This place was still home, youngest brother slaps the ball out of my hand, and then, he drove long miles to deliver packages but we rarely uttered the word anymore. Home and we start playing once more. I had no idea for various corporations. But his trailer-cleaning was supposed to be a place you returned to after where this memory came from — I couldn’t even business was the one constant. After a few engaging with the world. What did home mean be sure it was real — but over the next few days, it months of accompanying my father to work, I now? We were still trying to figure that out. prompted me to remember all those years when no longer associated life outside with freedom. Not that we had nothing to do. I’d never I spent most of my time outside. Even when I played basketball in the sun with been busier; almost every minute of my day I was born to two Nigerian immigrants in my brothers and friends, I knew my leisure had was booked. Feeding the baby, changing her Ogden, Utah, and for the first 13 years of my life, been sponsored in part by my father’s labor. diapers, loading the dishwasher, unloading northern Utah was my home. We lived in various What I sensed but could not express, not quite, the dishwasher, reading to the toddler, putting cities — Bountiful and Farmington and Salt Lake was that the fun times I spent outside were a on Sesame Street (and rewinding it, because City — and each time we moved, I forgot the kind of illusion, that beneath the sheen of sun the 3-year-old had to hear a particular song a details of our previous apartment. But I always and laughter was our grimy reality, a kind of second time) — an unceasing run-on sentence remembered how I felt when I was outside. purgatory that my family — and only my family, of survival. “Outside” was never tied to a particular location; it seemed — had to endure. The one thing we avoided was going outside. we played against an unchanging backdrop of I admired my father for his boundless At the beginning of the pandemic, my wife and plain suburban homes, each of them presiding energy and incredible work ethic, for the fact I had committed to taking a long walk every day over perfectly green and manicured lawns. What he never paused to rest or even catch his breath. so the kids could feel the sun on their faces. But mattered most to me was the action: the fact But we all saw how red his eyes were, and how going outside was no longer a frictionless expe- we could do almost anything we wanted, that difficult it was for him just to lift his legs into and rience. We became hypervigilant the moment when we were outside our parents were distant, out of his car. I had no desire to spend my life we ventured beyond our door. Don’t touch limited gods whose powers waned the farther doing the same. As he worked, my father would that! Move away from him! After a few weeks, away from home we wandered. That, when we tell us he had to spend his days this way because

48 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Krystal Quiles / HCN

he hadn’t been able to finish college — that if face, that simultaneous feeling of emptiness and we wanted a different life, all we had to do was wholeness that surged through me whenever I excel in school. I thought about the long hours glanced up at the sky. I knew my children were my mother spent at the hospital working as a too young to remember much of anything about nurse. I knew her job was incredibly demand- this moment. But I knew that at some point in ing, perhaps more so in certain ways than my the future, my children, too, would find them- Even when I father’s, but at least she never had to worry selves in an uncomfortable circumstance, and about outlasting the elements. I thought about they, too, would reach for images from their past played basketball my friends’ parents, who worked office jobs. I to search for clues about the way forward. I could had no idea what people did inside an office, but not offer them the Wasatch Mountains, at least in the sun with I’d learned from TV that it involved sitting at a not yet, but the park just down the street would desk and occasionally gossiping with coworkers. do fine for now. my brothers and Frankly, it looked easy. I called my wife and 3-year-old. We put on I followed my father’s advice and worked our socks and shoes, and our masks. We all took friends, I knew my hard in school. As I grew older, I spent less time a deep breath and, like astronauts descending outside, and by the time I finished graduate from a spaceship to the soil of a dying planet, we leisure had been school, I had cultivated in my mind the perfect tentatively ventured outside. vision of an indoor life, a life of offices and muse- sponsored in part ums and hotels and conference centers. Tope Folarin is a Nigerian American writer What I realized years later, as I stood at the based in Washington, D.C. He serves as executive by my father’s window and cradled my newborn, was that the director of the Institute for Policy Studies and the pandemic had granted me the opportunity to Lannan visiting lecturer in creative writing at labor. live a heightened version of the life I’d once Georgetown University. His debut novel, A Partic- wanted. Now, at last, I was always inside. But ular Kind of Black Man, was published by Simon I needed more. I wanted to feel the sun on my & Schuster.

AUGUST 2021 49 Heard Around the West Tips about Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write [email protected].

BY BETSY MARSTON

THE WEST taught by parents at home,” reports “Hot enough for you?” That’s the The Week. That includes teaching traditional summer greeting for “critical race theory.” Fortunately, Westerners meeting at the grocery England knows just how to prevent store or in front of the post office. But it: She wants teachers to start wear- from Portland to Phoenix these days, ing body cameras. The cameras as the thermometer consistently would ensure there’s “a record that ratchets above 100 degrees Fahren- could be viewed by appropriate heit, the response might just come parties,” she said. No word on how with an expletive. Now a new study those “appropriate parties” would of human-caused climate change’s be selected, but we hope they wear effects on the Greater Yellowstone body cameras too; their discussions Ecosystem tells us that what’s going might prove educational. on might be even worse than we imagined. As Jonathan Thompson THE NATION notes in his Land Letter, the study Many of us have a favorite Swiss found that the Yellowstone region’s Army knife tool: toothpick, twee- average temperature is not only the zers, corkscrew — take your pick. highest it’s been in the last 20,000 Until recently, though, it’s a safe bet years, “it’s likely as warm now as it that few people considered using has been in 800,000 years.” In addi- Armando Veve / HCN their ingenious knives like, say, an tion, “The mean annual tempera- assault rifle — to kill as many people ture has increased by 2.3 degrees show him walking the lemur on a back home and no longer hungry, as possible as quickly as possible. Fahrenheit since 1950, and could leash and driving with it on his lap, agitated or thirsty, Maki returned But in a 94-page opinion, Judge jump by another 5-10 degrees by reports The New York Times. “At to his “normal lemur self,” said a Roger Benitez of the Southern 2100.” For farmers and gardeners some point, under circumstances zookeeper. And James, who told a District of California, a George W. in the area bordering Wyoming, that are unclear, man and lemur news reporter that he knows a lemur Bush appointee, made that bizarre Montana and Idaho, there’s a separated,” the paper added. The when he sees one because he likes comparison as he ruled Califor- silver lining: The growing season missing lemur, called Maki by the way they look, received a certifi- nia’s 30-year ban on assault-style has increased by about two weeks. zookeepers, was later discovered cate of honor from the San Francisco weapons unconstitutional. Like Unfortunately, that only helps if in a playground south of San Fran- mayor. Grateful zoo officials also the Swiss Army knife, he explained, there’s irrigation water, and we’re cisco. What alert scientific type gave him a lifelong zoo member- the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle is already too worried about climate was smart enough to identify the ship and his very own lemur, one “good for both home and battle … change to even think about that. animal? Preschooler James Trinh, that’s neither arthritic nor endan- the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect 5, that’s who, who yelled: “There’s gered because it’s a stuffed animal. combination of home defense CALIFORNIA a lemur! There’s a lemur!” Though Meanwhile, the lemur-napper faces weapon and homeland defense The Los Angeles man accused James was sure the big-eyed animal a possible sentence of a year behind equipment.” The judge blamed the of stealing an adorable — and was a lemur, some adults from the bars and up to $50,000 in fines. He media for perpetuating false stories extremely endangered — ring- Hope Lutheran Day School were was arrested after police investigat- of “murderous” AR-15s, reports the tailed lemur from the San Fran- skeptical. That’s because “coyotes, ing a shoplifting saw him drive off in Los Angeles Times. In California, cisco Zoo last October has been skunks, raccoons” have all visited a stolen dump truck. Benitez asserted, “murder by knife charged by federal prosecutors the playground, school director occurs seven times more often than with violating the Endangered Cynthia Huang told the San Fran- NEVADA murder by rifle,” though he failed to Species Act, reports ABC News. Cory cisco Chronicle. The zoo had been Karen England, founder of a group specify if Swiss Army knives were John McGilloway, 31, is accused of searching eagerly for Maki because called the Nevada Family Alliance, involved. Second Amendment snatching the animal from a zoo the 21-year-old lemur was arthritic said she’s concerned about teach- advocates applauded the ruling, enclosure; pictures on his phone and needed special care. Once ers “contradicting the lessons which is certain to be appealed.

50 HIGH COUNTRY NEWS JANUARY 2020 47 119 Grand Avenue PO Box 1090 Paonia, CO 81428

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#IAM THE WEST STEVE VON TILL Musician, poet, elementary school teacher Spirit Lake, Idaho

Most of my poetry and music — and even my choosing a profession like teaching — is based on an unquenchable longing for a deeper connection to something meaningful in this age of mindless distraction. By tapping into the raw spirit of creativity, I believe we can re-establish a connection to the great mystery, the Mother Earth, the creatures we share it with and ultimately ourselves. People think it’s disparate if you’re a heavy punk rock musician, label owner and elementary school teacher, but if you grew up with your heroes being warrior poets — people focused on the higher aspects of humanity — what else are we evolving for if not for art, music, poetry

and education? Bose / HCN Rajah

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