High Country News May Vol. 57, No 5

FOR SEVERAL YEARS I served on the board of a rural school district, and every year, when our draft budget was presented at our monthly public meeting, the audience would fill with people concerned about higher taxes. Seniors on fixed incomes spoke about the precarity of their budgets, while people of significantly greater means railed against “irresponsible” spending. As a board, we were trying to keep class sizes small enough for good learning outcomes and to avoid having to cut art and music and Spanish classes. I typically let the more senior board members handle the tough questions, but one year, as a young mom, I felt compelled to speak on behalf of the intergenerational social contract: the idea that when we were in school, we benefited from the investment…

Trump halts historic orphaned well-plugging program Western states were using funds from President Biden’s Infrastructure Act to clean up pollution left behind by industry. By Nick Bowlin The horses and mules that moved mountains and hearts Forest Service stock animals are indispensable to public-lands trail work. Now, President Trump is accelerating the death of a dying art. By Shi En Kim Scan to read these stories and all our web-exclusive content. Follow us @highcountrynews…

HEARTBREAKING AND HEALING Thank you for this outstanding article on the Wakasa monument and the issues surrounding its discovery, excavation and future (“The Topaz Affair,” April 2025). Kori Suzuki did a thorough and sensitive job researching and reporting an emotional and volatile subject, and he photographed the story beautifully. It’s not clear that Mr. Wakasa, his relatives and the Wakasa Stone will ever find peace and resolution. But I expect any resolution will come, in part, from Suzuki’s fine reporting. Tom Graves San Francisco, California ANOTHER SIDE OF THE STORY It would be easy to read “No helping hand here” (April 2025) and walk away with the sense that the Veterans Park Neighborhood doesn’t care about the needs of the unhoused community in Boise. Interfaith’s current location sits in west…

ON A FEBRUARY MORNING, the broadcast studio at Radio Campesina in Phoenix, Arizona, feels frenzied: Drive-time DJs relinquish their seats to incoming guests, trading jokes over a norteña song’s jaunty accordion. But at 10:18 a.m., a producer gestures for silence. Mics go on, and Osvaldo Franko starts the show: “Vámonos, from coast to coast and border to border!” Franko’s voice reaches some 750,000 people — many of them Latino workers, from bellhops in Las Vegas to farmworkers in California’s Central Valley. Every weekday morning for more than 25 years, Spanish-speaking listeners around the West have tuned into Punto de Vista for casual but curated conversations on topics ranging from national politics to romance. Today’s segment, though, is something new: Conoce Tus Derechos, or “Know Your Rights.” Radio Campesina launched the…

With lunar phrases I cry to diorama houses—adrenaline, scorn—on your hills I prowlto the frisk of minor keys, Ha,a “gullible vermin”—lecherous, deceitful, immoral, vile,remembering towns before rivers bequeathed them to highways, Ha,Roosevelt’s “beasts of waste and desolation,” Ha,Nelson’s Denver-to-Disappointment-Valley kill machine, Ha,5 million scalps, 7 million,strychnine and thallium sulfate, Compound 1080, Ha,recommissioned Jeeps, mounted rifles with high-powered scopes,a map’s crisp elevations,peripherals and foolproof systems, Ha,Predator & Rodent Control Branch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service(joke sister of the “Bureau of Indian Affairs”) Ha, Ha,aerial hunting from copters, Ha, dying rabbit calls, Ha,rabbit calls leading to hounds,sterilizations, bait carcasseswith cubes of poisoned animal fat stuffed inside, Ha,toxic collars on sheep, Ha, beyond, Ha,beyond Bering Strait and shamanic ledge, beyond coyotl, iisaw, Canis latrans, Ha,Guatemala, Alaska, Ha,Gary Snyder, Ha,mad druggists, bounties,…

EVERY SUMMER, rancher Richard Egan grazes about 400 cattle on private and Forest Service land in northeastern California. Since 2017, the rolling grasslands and pine forest have also been home to the Lassen Pack, which has produced nine litters of pups. In 2023, the state paid Egan $5,550 to compensate him for the loss of a cow and calf to the wolves, but he says there are other, less tangible costs of operating in their territory: The stress of living with predators, for example, can cause cows to put on less weight or give birth to fewer calves. Two years ago, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife tested the “pay for presence” concept, which attempts to tally — and at least partially cover — these hidden costs. While most…