None of Our Business – Yet

March 27, 2020

Coloradans who pay close attention to western water issues have monitored California’s internal water wars for years. Leaders there have worked for decades to address long-term water shortages for farms in the San Juaquin Valley, while their giant metropolitan cities continue to grow, and while trying to leave as much water in the rivers as […]

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Where Did the Water Go?

March 6, 2020

Colorado River managers have struggled most of my life to administer interstate agreements in the face of dwindling flows. It was a perennial issue long before anyone heard of global warming, yet we’re now told that is why the river has less water than it used to. Two career U.S. Geological Survey bureaucrats have published […]

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Planting Trees For Our Descendents

February 28, 2020

“Johnny Appleseed” was a legend by the time he died around 1845. The pioneer nurseryman introduced apple trees across a vast swath of the Midwest, and is revered as one of the earliest leaders of the fledgling conservation movement. Planting trees has been a noble pursuit for centuries, with heroes like him as role models. […]

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What Else Can We Work On?

February 21, 2020

For several years I have been a senior advisor to the respected environmental firm, Dawson and Associates. The organization helps with projects that require permits, especially from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the firm’s associates include numerous retired USACE officials. Many were generals, district commanders, and their civilian bosses at the Pentagon. […]

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Coal is Booming – Elsewhere

February 14, 2020

Few industries have seen more economic ups and downs than coal. In Colorado and most of the United States, it has been mostly down for a couple decades, but it turns out that is not the case elsewhere. Not by a long ways. Much has been made about the impacts of federal policy on the […]

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Turning the Aircraft Carrier

February 7, 2020

Since the days of George Washington, Presidents have wished they could make government employees do what they are told. Actually, that frustration is much older than America. Peter the Great once said, “People think I rule Russia, but a thousand bureaucrats rule Russia.” That’s one reason presidential candidates’ promises are often more difficult to deliver […]

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This is Certifiably Confusing

January 27, 2020

Leaders trying desperately to restore healthy forests and rebuild the forestry economy, from California to Australia, need all the help they can get. The not-so-new idea of forest certification could still be a powerful ally. For years, forest restoration has meant developing new products and new markets for the millions of tons of material that […]

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Waste Not, Want Not

January 24, 2020

CNN reports that “the fabric of America is crumbling,” quoting an American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) report giving a D+ grade to the country’s roads, bridges, airports, schools, and other public works. Melodramatic? The World Economic Forum now ranks the U.S. 13th in the world in maintaining adequate infrastructure, even below the United Arab […]

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Something to Give a Dam About

January 17, 2020

A wire story printed by dozens of newspapers last month called attention to a national safety problem, the age and condition of dams. Its headline said “At least 1,680 dams across the U.S. pose potential risk.” That is my candidate for understatement of the decade. There are 91,468 dams in the U.S., including 1,803 in […]

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Can We See Clearly Now?

January 10, 2020

Comics used to joke, “Maybe we’ll see things more clearly by 2020.” After a string of jokes about how muddled and confused the world seemed, the reference to perfect vision sounded especially humorous. It has only been 2020 for three days, but there are already hundreds of columns, editorials, and books using the now-trite reference […]

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