Kate and Aaron are joined by three members of the reporting team behind, Lithium Liabilities, a groundbreaking investigation into how lithium mining could affect the West’s water supply. Emma Peterson, Morgan Casey, and Lauren Mucciolo are part of a large team of editors, photographers, and reporters who worked on the investigation at the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

Click here to read an automatically generated transcript of the episode.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Doc Searls/Flickr

The post Will lithium mining dry up the West? appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron are joined by pollsters Lori Weigel and Dave Metz to discuss the 14th Annual Colorado College State of the Rockies Project Conservation in the West poll. The poll surveys voters in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Colorado on their environmental views. This year, it found support for conservation of nature is higher than ever.

Click here to read an automatically generated transcript of the episode.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: BLM/Flickr

The post What Western voters want in 2024 appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Justin Meuse, Director of Government Relations for Climate and Energy at the Wilderness Society, to talk about a proposal from the Bureau of Land Management to prioritize around 22 million acres of public land for utility scale solar development across the West. They discuss why planning matters, how much solar development to actually expect if this plan proceeds, and how you can get involved.

View an automatically generated transcript of this episode here.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: BLM/Flickr

The post More solar on public lands? Digging into BLM’s plan appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Driven by high uranium prices, domestic uranium mining has resumed at three locations in the U.S. after an eight-year hiatus. Kate and Aaron are joined by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director at the Grand Canyon Trust and Scott Clow, Environmental Programs Director for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, to discuss how that will impact the Grand Canyon and Tribal communities on the Colorado Plateau.

Click here for an automatically generated transcript.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons

The post Uranium mining returns to the Colorado Plateau appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron are joined by I Ling Thompson, CEO of The Foundation for America’s Public Lands. The Foundation is the official charitable partner of the Bureau of Land Management. Its job is to engage with local communities and the public on behalf of the agency. Thompson discusses the challenges the BLM faces and how the Foundation plans to help, as well as how members of the public can engage with the Foundation.

Click here for an automatically generated transcript.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: BLM/Flickr

The post Inside the Foundation for America’s Public Lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Tony Caligiuri, president and CEO of Colorado Open Lands, a nonprofit land trust that exists to protect Colorado’s land and water resources. Colorado Open Lands works primarily with private landowners to place voluntary agreements called conservation easements on their property. Tony talks about how private land and water conservation works, as well as the vital role it plays in the national effort to protect 30 percent of U.S. land and water by 2030.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: BLM/Flickr

The post The private land piece of the 30×30 puzzle appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala for a year-end public lands news roundup and a look ahead at 2024. Overall, 2023 was a great year for public lands. The Biden administration took some really important and concrete steps toward protecting 30 percent of U.S. lands by 2030, as well as started some important rule-makings to update public lands management and end drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. But the pressure is on as we head into 2024. We talk about what public lands lovers should be watching in the new year.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: USInterior/Flickr

The post The year in public lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Dr. Dominick DellaSala, Chief Scientist at Wild Heritage, a project of the Earth Island Institute. We had Dr. DellaSala on the Landscape back in June to talk about the Biden administration’s efforts to protect old growth forests. At the time, the U.S. Forest Service had just released data that it found more than 32 million acres of old-growth forests remain on public lands in the United States. The administration took a big step to protect those trees this week, with the announcement that it plans to ban commercial logging in all old growth forests on federal land. Dr. DellaSala takes us behind the headlines to discuss what that ban actually entails.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Old growth forest, Oswald West State Park, Oregon; USFWS, Flickr

The post Behind the headlines: old growth logging ban appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron are joined by Rachel Morgan, author of Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology. Rachel is an archaeologist based near Washington, DC, and her book, which was published last month, is largely focused on the Southwest. She gives a detailed account of the Wetherill family, which settled in southwest Colorado in the 1800s and explored Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Grand Gulch extensively. She also talks about how legal and scientific transformations have given rise to the science we know today as archaeology.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Step House, Wetherill Mesa, Mesa Verde National Park; Source: Ken Lund, Flickr

The post Sins of the shovel: How archaeology evolved from pot hunting to science appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Aaron and Kate are joined by Julia Stuble, Wyoming State Senior Manager with the Wilderness Society. Julia is a Wyomingite who’s lived and worked in the state for decades. She’s here to talk about a proposed Bureau of Land Management resource management plan, or RMP, for southwest Wyoming that’s making waves in the state. The draft Rock Springs RMP prioritizes conservation in some areas by closing them to new oil and gas leasing, but those areas aren’t of much interest to oil and gas companies anyway. So why is the state making such a ruckus about it? Julia has the answers.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Boar’s Tusk, Red Desert, Sweetwater County, Wyoming; weesam2010, Flickr

The post How a Wyoming land use plan ended up in a misinformation war appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.