Essay by Alexa Mergen
Environment – April 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
MY LATE GRANDMOTHER, Helen, was a lifelong Republican who, along with her sheep-ranching sister, bristled at the Endangered Species Act, both shaking their heads when they talked about tortoises getting more rights than people. In spite of cancer running through the family like uranium ore in the ground, my great-uncle mined uranium to keep the ranch out of hock, and Helen liked to say that atomic testing had to happen somewhere, and well, the desert has a lot of open space.