Lost Valley Farm, based in Boardman, is Oregon’s second largest dairy. It’s faced opposition from the beginning. Environmental groups worried about the risk of liquid manure and wastewater pollution that leaking out of storage areas.Read More
For the first time in recent history, a mother wolverine has been spotted in the southern part of Washington’s Cascade Mountains. The carnivores had been wiped out of the region after excessive hunting and trapping in the mid-1900s.Read More
Mountain goats in the Olympic Mountains could soon be a thing of the past. The non-native goat population has rapidly grown over the past 14 years — to a point where it now could put hikers at risk and damage sensitive vegetation in the subalpine landscape.Read More
A Northwest company is aiming to build the country’s first house-sized reactor that can put electricity onto the grid.Read More
Some Eastern Washington lawmakers want the Snake River Dams to stay in place. They’ve crafted a bill to leave the dams as they are — in response to a federal judge’s order to consider removing the dams to protect salmon. Read More
Wildfire smoke can be annoying. It makes your eyes water and your nose run. But for some people with certain medical conditions, wildfire smoke can be especially unhealthy — and sometimes deadly. That’s why experts say people need to prepare before fires start. One big way to help: get an air filtration system.Read More
Growing up, Gary Kempler remembers watching flocks of bighorn sheep near his hometown of Clarkston, Washington.
Now, as someone who is incarcerated at Washington State Penitentiary, Kempler is in the Sustainability in Prisons Project. He’s working to help bighorns — through domestic sheep production.Read More
There’s only one place you can find one of North America’s rarest butterflies: on a small patch of an island in Washington’s Puget Sound. And it’s in trouble. That’s why the federal government wants to add the island marble butterfly to the endangered species list.Read More
Sage grouse are found in 11 Western states. But they’re in trouble. In Oregon, their fragmented habitat is threatened by human development, invasive species, wildfires and overgrazing. Researchers are just starting to look into raven depredation, a more controversial problem for the birds. In a policy shift, the federal government wants sage grouse work to focus on the Read More
Washington and Oregon have joined a lawsuit alleging U.S. Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt is violating the Clean Air Act. The lawsuit says the government needs to limit methane emissions from existing oil and gas facilities.Read More
Lower Snake River dams could be replaced by a variety of renewable energy resources, according to a new study by the NW Energy Coalition. The advocacy group says this means dam removal doesn’t have to be a choice between salmon and renewable energy.Read More
The federal government will have to spill more water over Columbia and Snake river dams starting Tuesday in an effort to help young salmon migrating to the ocean. This will make up the biggest planned water spill over dams for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.Read More
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is heading to the North Cascades Friday to speak on reintroducing grizzly bears in that part of Washington. His agency had previously suspended controversial efforts to bolster the bears in the area.Read More
One of the most ideal places in the world to bring back gray wolves is right here in the Northwest, according to a new study. Researchers have found bringing the large carnivores back to the Olympic National Park could greatly help the ecosystem — and the predators.Read More
There’s a lot less snow in the western U.S. than there was a century ago. That’s according to new research that found dramatic declines in snowpack as the seasons have gotten warmer.Read More
Washington lawmakers have agreed to ban firefighting foam that contains harmful chemicals. Perfluorinated chemicals are used in firefighting foam to help contain petroleum fires. Firefighters have sprayed the foam around Washington’s military airstrips and fire-training facilities.Read More
Salmon researchers in the Northwest are turning to sound to learn more about the fish they’re trying to understand.Read More
The Trump administration wants to sell off publicly-owned utility transmission lines. The most recent budget proposal also suggests a move that could raise rates for Bonneville Power Administration customers.Read More
A Washington climate activist is the first “valve turner” to go to prison for shutting off the flow of oil from Canada’s tar sands region into the U.S.Read More
Washington doesn’t want your offshore drilling. That was Gov. Jay Inslee’s resounding message at a press conference Monday, where he spoke out against a federal plan for offshore oil and gas drilling.Read More
Scientists are one step closer to making more snow fall during winter storms. The controversial process is called cloud seeding. There’s now evidence that it is actually working. Read More
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MTBA) is the primary federal law protecting birds in the U.S. It initially targeted poaching and a feather-obsessed fashion industry that was laying waste to migratory birds across the continent.Read More
It took the threat of a lawsuit, but a federal agency is no longer killing the Beaver State’s beavers. Environmental groups had challenged the practice in Oregon because, they said, it’s a threat to more than just the state animal. Like much in the Northwest, it touches on salmon.Read More
Researchers had long suspected salmon have lost huge amounts genetic diversity over the years. But they’d never tested the hypothesis -- until now.Read More
They’ve been called devil fish. They’re No. 1 on the hit-list for invasive aquatic life in Washington waters. And they’re creeping farther and farther down the Columbia River system.Read More
The Trump administration is suspending efforts to bolster the grizzly bear population in Washington’s North Cascades. That would leave this part of the mountain range with fewer than ten of the imperiled bears.Read More
A Chinook salmon. Listen One of Idaho’s struggling salmon species could eventually become self-sustaining in the wild under the federal government’s new recovery strategies. The two new recovery plans are […]Read More
Chris Hooper, right, of White Salmon watches the fire caused by a derailed oil train in Mosier, Oregon, near Hood River in the Columbia River Gorge on Friday, June […]Read More
Sherpa carrying kit to base camp on Mount Everest. Listen It’s a unique problem: How to dispose of human waste on Mount Everest? The mountain’s climatic conditions and high […]Read More
Coho salmon, left, and Chinook salmon, swim past viewing windows at a fish ladder at the Ballard Locks in Seattle. Photo credit: Elaine Thompson / Associated Press Listen It […]Read More
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife technician Claire Satterwhite holds a pygmy rabbit. Photo credit: USFWS – Pacific Region Listen As wildfires rage across the Pacific Northwest, more than […]Read More
Possibly over 300,000 Atlantic Salmon escaped from a fish farm after a net pen broke near broke near Puget Sound’s Cyprus Island. Photo credit: MICHAEL C. YORK / ASSOCIATED […]Read More
At issue is whether a large organic farm, Azure Standard, is letting its weeds spread onto neighboring property — and whether the government should do something about it. Neighboring farmers say the weeds have crept onto their fields, costing them time and money to control the problem. Read More
A rare and fatal birth defect called anencephaly is striking at an alarming rate — about four times the national average — in three eastern Washington counties.Read More
Revenda Bebawi, a military dentist based in Stuttgart, Germany, helps comfort a nervous child during a free dental clinic in El Paredon, Guatemala. Dentists from around the world traveled […]Read More
Walter Henze didn’t know much about birds until he built this home outside Tonasket, Washington. Now he starts every day with a cup of joe and walk around his property […]Read More
Barn Owls have very long legs, toes and talons to help them to catch prey hidden under long grass. The scientific Latin name for Barn Owl is Tyto alba alba. […]Read More
The Carlton Complex burned through Ken Bevis’ property in 2014. Since then, he hasn’t cut down the dead trees — they make great bird habitat. Ken Bevis has left somewhere […]Read More
Private companies are essential in fighting the mega-wildfires that yearly burn through the backcountry and encroach on towns. One fire company in the Methow Valley is a family affair.Read More
Wildland firefighters are a tight-knit group. After years of fighting fires together in the remote wilderness and on the edges of suburbia, you get to know a lot of people. And for one fire company in Washington’s Methow Valley, the bond is even stronger.Read More
Nestlé is looking to build a commercial water bottling plant in the Northwest. It’s most recent pitch is to the town of Waitsburg, Washington, about 20 miles north of Walla […]Read More
Palm-sized pygmy rabbits like to create burrows under mounds of sagebrush. For more than a decade, Washington’s pygmy rabbits have struggled to come back from the brink of extinction. […]Read More
Sara Schilling, Courtney Flatt and Eddie Goss pose for a picture at the summit of Mount Adams. This was their first attempt climbing up Washington’s second tallest volcano, which stands […]Read More
Asparagus hummus at Black Cypress restaurant in Pullman. The 2016 International Year of the Pulse aims to put more of the crops — chickpeas, lentils, dried peas and beans […]Read More
Derek Churchill takes notes during a meeting before crews begin marking trees. Churchill and his team have developed a system that uses data points to help crews know they’re […]Read More
Sheri Tonn, with Citizens for a Healthy Bay, looks at the old Occidental Chemical Corporation site from a boat on the Hylebos Waterway. For decades the facility produced drycleaning […]Read More
Jennifer Garcia with her daughter, Hannah, 2. Garcia found out the soil in her yard tested high for arsenic. It’s left over from pesticides sprayed before the 1950s on […]Read More
Bill Rietveldt, Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center curator, shows off apple labels. “The great northern railroad advertised Wentachee as ‘The Place to Go Grow Apples,” Rietveldt said. “That’s […]Read More
Andrew Shields, a wildlife biologist for Roaring Springs Ranch in southeastern Oregon, searches for a radio collared sage grouse. Photo credit: Courtney Flatt Listen The plight of greater sage […]Read More
The Yellowstone grizzly bear is an omnivore, it eats meat, fruits, berries, grass and bugs. Photo credit: Yellowstone National Park Listen Would you like to see more grizzly bears […]Read More
