Our Stories

The Latest by Ted Zukoski

Staff Attorney

May 20, 2008

EPA Welcomes Smog to National Parks

By Ted Zukoski

Aah, summer!  Time to hit the road and visit some our crown jewel national parks here in the West.  It’s time to enjoy the trees, the canyons, the birds, bees, and bears, the ranger talks, the smog.  The smog?  Yep, get ready for it.  Because if the EPA has its way, the tremendous views from …

May 12, 2008

Drink? Or Drive?

By Ted Zukoski

Drink? Or drive? That may sound like questions to ask a a prospective designated driver before a night on the town. It may soon be the stark choice faced by an entire region. That’s because Shell Oil is planning to build giant oil shale extraction plants in western Colorado. The dirty little secret of oil …

May 6, 2008

Off-Road Vehicle Driving May Be Hazardous to Your Health

By Ted Zukoski

Advocates for off-road vehicles (ORVs) — dirt bikes, three-wheelers, and all-terrain vehicles — like to say that their recreation is all about the three F’s: "family, freedom, and fun." Now they’ve decided to add "lung disease" to the list. In California, a 48-square-mile area of Bureau of Land Management Lands known as "Clear Creek" apparently …

May 1, 2008

Wayne Newton, Uranium Mining, and the Grand Canyon

By Ted Zukoski  /  Rocky Mountain Office

In the late 1980s, the country celebrated the 200th anniversary of our most important legal text: the U.S. Constitution. To do so, a commission was established, headed by respected former Chief Justice Warren Burger. And to lead a celebration in Washington, D.C., an equally distinguished American was chosen: Wayne Newton. Wayne Newton!!?? The original Las …

April 22, 2008

One Reason to Love National Parks

By Ted Zukoski

Over the last few months, I visited two of our flagship National Parks — Death Valley in California, and Zion in Utah. Both share some of the less-than-inspiring features of many national parks: the miles of paved highway, the acres of park land devoted to borrow pits, maintenance yards, employee housing, and snack bars, and …

April 17, 2008

Good News, Bad News on the Rez

By Ted Zukoski

The Navajo Nation — America’s largest Native American reservation — has breathtaking scenery, disheartening poverty, and a lot of sunny, windy days. So it was good news both on and off the Rez that the Nation has contracted with an East Coast renewable energy firm to build 500 megawatts of wind power generation there. The …

April 7, 2008

But It's a Dry Heat!

By Ted Zukoski

Global warming, by definition, impacts the entire planet. But warming will likely have differing impacts on different areas. What does that mean for the climate of the American West? A report prepared by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council last month boiled the answer down to three words: hotter and …

April 1, 2008

A Grande-Sized Oil Play on Colorado Forest Land

By Ted Zukoski

In 1996, the Forest Service described the 1.8 million acre Rio Grande National Forest, which rings the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, as "large … and … essentially undeveloped." The agency expected things to stay that way, at least as far as petroleum extraction was concerned. An analysis of the management plan the Forest …

March 12, 2008

Profiles in … Cowardice?

By Ted Zukoski  /  Rocky Mountain Office

Global warming is clearly one of the pre-eminent environmental challenges of our time. Yet, when some federal regulators are presented with an opportunity to meet the challenge, they prefer to do nothing.

March 3, 2008

Wyoming Gags on Natural Gas

By Ted Zukoski

The movie "Three Kings" (1999), which follows a trio of American soldiers involved in the first Gulf War, contains an apt, if heavy-handed, metaphor about America’s dependence on oil: an Iraqi torturer forces the black goo down an American prisoner’s throat, making him gag. In Sublette County, Wyoming, life is now imitating art. Picturesque Pinedale, …