Mountain View
The Sierra Nevada Ally
Patterns in philanthropy leave small newsrooms behind. Can that change?
This story is used with permission by Nieman Journalism Lab, Harvard University. This is Part 2 of a two-part series, “‘Haves and have-nots’ in nonprofit news? The view from small news outlets. Find Part 1 here. Before helping found the nonprofit Sierra Nevada Ally in 2020, Joe...
Many small news nonprofits feel overlooked by funders. A new coalition is giving them a voice
This story is used with permission by Nieman Journalism Lab, Harvard University. This is Part I of a two-part series, “‘Haves and have-nots’ in nonprofit news? The view from small news outlets. Tomorrow, we will publish Part 2. Here’s a question I bet you can’t answer without...
It has been two years since Anna Marie Scott was murdered, and still, law enforcement remains silent
On a chilly February morning in 2022, early morning commuters on I-580 through Washoe Valley were met with a horrific sight: a car in the southbound lanes was fully consumed in fire. When first responders arrived, the situation became far more grizzly when it was discovered that the body of...
Lithium Liabilities: The untold threat to water in the rush to mine American lithium
SILVER PEAK, N.V. — Nyle Pennington, a veteran water scientist who tracks groundwater for local governments, stopped at a monitoring station just one mile from America’s only active commercial lithium mine. For years this well in Central Nevada typically held enough fresh water to reach the height of a three-story building, or about 30 feet. Pennington said it supplied much-needed nourishment for local cattle grazing under the Nevada sun.
Vast and Proper
As I drive home from work. our origins: Canaan, America, Nevada. plume of dust from a dirt bike in the sage. the mind tilts at obscene angles. These ranges offer silence beyond this traffic. I feel a squirrely desire to disappear. Each day I drop my son at the green...
A Witness Account of the January 10th Palisades Tahoe Avalanche
On the morning of January 10, 2024, Palisades Tahoe season passholders Britt Bickert and her husband Sam Campbell got up early and drove from Reno to the resort to catch the first tracks at KT-22. Bickert and Campbell love riding powder- which usually comes during a snowstorm- and this was the first day of the season that the world-class expert terrain was open.
Nevada Supreme Court issues major water ruling
Republished by permission of Daniel Rothberg, from his Substack newsletter. Like so many rivers in the dry Southwest, the Muddy River is stretched thin. For more than a century, it has been divided up with some water rights “vested” (meaning they predate Nevada’s statutory scheme for regulating water use). Las Vegas currently has rights to a portion of the river, using it to boost its Colorado River supply. The springs feeding the Muddy River support an ecosystem that includes the rare Moapa Dace, an endemic species that despite many threats to its habitat over the years, persists today.
Proponents push outdoor diversity
S’lacio Bankston struggled on the icy pitch, lost his footing and backed off. Later, the 20-year-old refocused and invoked Mohammed Ali to pump himself up: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” Bankston sent the frozen waterfall on his second effort as his friends erupted in cheers.
Energy guru says efficiency can bridge the gap
The experts tell us an energy gap looms: Fossil fuels are phasing out, but solar and wind power can’t produce enough electricity to meet demand in coming decades. But that’s not the thinking of Amory Lovins, the 76-year-old co-founder of RMI, formerly the Rocky Mountain Institute in western Colorado.
‘Emergency’ or Not, Covid Is Still Killing People. Here’s What Doctors Advise to Stay Safe.
With around 20,000 people dying of covid in the United States since the start of October, and tens of thousands more abroad, the covid pandemic clearly isn’t over. However, the crisis response is, since the World Health Organization and the Biden administration ended their declared health emergencies last year.
TAMBA: Building the trails we love
“Usage of trails has been growing for decades, but investment hasn’t kept up with demand. We had 15 to 20 years of large fires pulling away resources from building trails,” said Sandor Lengyel, a trail crew leader for the Tahoe Area Mountain Biking Association (TAMBA). The Forest Service trail crews are often also firefighters.
From Indigo Girls to special collaborations
Amy Ray of Indigo Girls has been penning songs for decades now. The duo had a major hit with the song Closer to Fine in the late 1980s and have continued to write and tour in the years since. Amy has also established herself as a solo artist releasing seven studio albums and three live records on her own. Her musical style is best described as folk-rock, both as the duo and a solo artist. Throughout her career she has sought to bring elements of activism into her tunes. She has been a stalwart voice for the LGBTQ community, but also writes about disenfranchised people from all walks of life. She has established a loyal fanbase over the years and continues to write songs with her people in mind.
A Terrible Dilemma Faces the Great Basin
The long drive between Salt Lake City, Utah and Reno, Nevada on Interstate 80 feels endless, the landscape timeless. But these basins and ranges of the Great Basin Desert are changing dramatically. Wildfire, climate change and aridification are transforming plant communities, while animals, including humans, try to figure out how...
2023 Conservation Year in Review
The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, was the largest U.S. climate bill in history, with nearly $400 billion dedicated to fighting climate change. Funding from this bill impacts issues directly affecting Nevada and the West, like habitat restoration, drought-based issues such as wildfire, and renewable energy investment. 2023 saw disbursement of the funding to government agencies and taxpayers, businesses, and organizations in the form of tax credits.
‘I Am Just Waiting to Die’: Social Security Clawbacks Drive Some Into Homelessness
This article first appeared in KFF Health News and is being republished here with permission. More than a year after the federal government first cut off her disability benefits, Denise Woods drives nightly to strip malls, truck stops, and parking lots around Savannah, Georgia, looking for a safe place to sleep in her Chevy.
How can California solve its water woes? By flooding its best farmland.
This story was originally published by Grist and co-published with Fresnoland. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. he land of the Central Valley works hard. Here in the heart of California, in the most productive farming region in the United States, almost every square inch of land has been razed, planted, and shaped to support large-scale agriculture. The valley produces almonds, walnuts, pistachios, olives, cherries, beans, eggs, milk, beef, melons, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and garlic.
USDA Report: Poverty Decreases for Some Nonmetro Counties
This article first appeared in The Daily Yonder, and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. The latest “Rural America at a Glance” report – an annual reference document issued by the USDA Economic Research Service – shows that persistent poverty is decreasing in some rural areas, but experts cautioned that the changes may not be lasting.
Signs of the times
This article first appeared in Double Scoop, and is being republished here with permission. Anna Newman has her finger on the pulse of a changing Reno. Her latest sculpture series consists of handmade tributes to the beloved old neon signs from demolished, downtown-adjacent motels that have come to serve in our public consciousness as symbols of the ongoing tensions around gentrification.
Why people still fall for fake news about climate change
This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. In 1995, a leading group of scientists convened by the United Nations declared that they had detected a “human influence” on global temperatures with “effectively irreversible” consequences. In the coming decades, 99.9 percent of scientists would come to agree that burning fossil fuels had disrupted the Earth’s climate.
Rural Counties Dependent on Recreation Industry Show Best Recovery from Pandemic Employment Loss
Rural counties where the recreation industry is a big part of the local economy are more likely than other types of rural counties to have regained the jobs they lost during the pandemic, a Daily Yonder analysis shows. Rural America overall still hasn’t regained the jobs it lost in the...
The Sierra Nevada Ally
1K+
Posts
2M+
Views
The Sierra Nevada Ally is a nonprofit news organization that focuses on the environment/science, k-12 education, governance, and arts reporting relevant to northern Nevada and Tahoe Sierra.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.