Politics and environmental issues in the US Southwest: good sources for news and gossip?

March 1, 2008 10:55 PM

Anyone follow environmental issues or general politics in the US Southwest (AZ, NM, UT, CO)?

I'm trying to get a crash course about what's happening in the region and then stay up to speed. What are the best sources for political gossip? For environmental news about the region? All I've got so far are the major newspapers, High Country News, and a couple (rarely updated) blogs.

I'm most curious about the key environmental and regional planning issues in the southwest now. Who are the big players (nonprofits, state agencies, cities, others), and what are they working on?

I realize this is a broad question, but anything will be much appreciated. I work on these sorts of issues in the Bay Area, and since I love the US Southwest, I wish I had a better understanding of what is going on down there.

posted by salvia to Law & Government (9 answers total)

For Colorado, the Rocky Mountain News is a good source. When I lived in Colorado Springs, I found it to have much more broad coverage of issues than the Colorado Springs Gazette or the Denver Post.
posted by amyms at 11:14 PM on March 1, 2008

Water.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:42 AM on March 2, 2008

Environment Arizona has a broad environmental agenda and is working on a number of issues that affect Arizona.

Headwaters News reports on issues affecting the Rockies.
posted by zoel at 5:26 AM on March 2, 2008

Don't forget the alt-weekly papers - Westword here in Denver just finished running a story debunking the media hype behind the Leadville, CO water pollution story.
posted by salsamander at 6:44 AM on March 2, 2008

http://denverdirect.blogspot.com/ is run by a guy who seems pretty sharp. May not have what you want but you can try the blogs/sites he links to in the "Of Note" section.
posted by powpow at 8:09 AM on March 2, 2008

The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque tends to be pretty tied in to these sorts of concerns.
posted by Roach at 9:02 AM on March 2, 2008

For Colorado regional planning in terms of land conservation vs. development, a couple of places to start would be Great Outdoors Colorado, a state trust funded by the lottery, and the Colorado Conservation Trust, a non-profit that pools resources to fund preservation and does a lot of research, legwork, and brokering behind the scenes. Since these are both grant-making bodies, meaning other people are doing most of the actual preservation work, it might be better to use these as jumping off points than endpoints.
posted by Askr at 9:48 AM on March 2, 2008

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance works to preserve wilderness in the Colorado Plateau region. They are very active in legislative issues both at the state and federal levels and do a lot of good work.
posted by JackFlash at 9:57 AM on March 2, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks, all. I've been checking some of these out, and they're all good leads. Thank you!
posted by salvia at 11:40 AM on March 8, 2008