For many parts of the United States this winter has been one of the warmest on record. People around the country are feeling the effects of it.Read More
Environment
Crews from multiple state agencies responded Monday to reports of a 38-foot tugboat that has sunken in the Columbia River. According to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the tugboat reportedly has 750 gallons of diesel on board.Read More
This week, a group of five-dozen microplastics researchers from major universities, government agencies, tribes, aquariums, environmental groups and even water sanitation districts across the U.S. West is gathering in Bremerton, Washington, to tackle the issue.Read More
The Bureau of Land Management decides who gets to do what on some 250 million acres of public land in the country, or to put it another way roughly one-tenth of all the land in the U.S. Relocating its headquarters to the West, where most of its actual land is, has been floated for years. But now the Trump administration is actually making it happen.Read More
The report from the independent Government Accountability Office says the U.S. Department of Energy has not found the root causes of the partial collapse of the waste-storage tunnel, and that failures in DOE’s investigation, inspections and maintenance of other aging and contaminated facilities is concerning.Read More
Winters are warming faster than summers in many places, and colder parts of the U.S. are warming faster than hotter ones. The warming winter climate has year-round consequences across the country.Read More
Amazon, the company Bezos founded and heads, has come under increasing scrutiny for its own carbon footprint. Read More
The Bureau of Land Management announced a proposal Friday that would fund up to 11,000 miles of strategic fuel breaks in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada and Utah in an effort to better control wildfires.Read More
The Oregon Department of Energy has issued a notice of violation to a hazardous waste facility for accepting more than 2 million pounds of radioactive materials east of the Columbia River Gorge.Read More
A group that wants to bring back wild sea otters to the Oregon Coast is taking a big step forward. The federal government has awarded them a grant to launch a feasibility study for a possible reintroduction effort.Read More
In Bozeman, Mont., the Water Reclamation Facility treats more than 6 million gallons of water every day from sinks, showers, toilets — really anything that goes down a drain. That includes liquid waste from more than 10 breweries in this city of nearly 50,000.Read More
Don’t feel bad for not noticing the blunt-leaf orchid. Native to bogs in the Pacific Northwest among other places, this unassuming little flower is easy to miss. It’s green all over like the moss it grows out of — right down to its green flowers.Read More
The Trans Mountain expansion, which would add more than 600 miles to the pipeline and increase its capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000, has been mired in controversy and legal battles since Canada's cabinet first approved the project in 2016.Read More
A rancher is rattled by the recent slaying of one of his cows near Hampton, Oregon.Read More
As more old orchard land in central Washington is converted into housing developments and schools, there are concerns over legacy pesticides in the soil where children play and families live. That’s especially true in Wenatchee and Yakima. Read More
The Trump administration is stripping clean water protections put in place by President Barack Obama, and some in the industry worry that the regulatory changes will threaten their business.Read More
At the start of 2020, the situation looked dismal. After a dry start to the season, Washington and Oregon had less than half the amount of snow they’d normally see in the mountains. Then came the first few weeks of January. Read More
In Washington Skagit Valley, a conflict is unfolding between the Upper Skagit Tribe and farmers as elk are making a comeback there. Read More
For years, engineers with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have worked to design a hydroelectric turbine that’s safer for fish. They’ve recently installed a new design that’s improving energy efficiency and improving fish survival along the Snake River, with plans to upgrade more turbines over the next several years.Read More
With Northwest salmon and steelhead on the brink, there are new efforts being brokered to save the famed fish.Read More
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Friday the young plaintiffs had "made a compelling case that action is needed," but they did not have legal standing to bring the case.Read More
Conservation groups say the animals need to be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Ten groups want to force the federal government to protect the elusive wolverines. The groups estimate there are around 300 wolverines left, sparsely scattered across the Mountain West, including Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Read More
The Washington Supreme Court on Thursday reinstated a severely limited version of Gov. Jay Inslee’s plan to cap carbon pollution in the state, a decision the Democrat described as a “clarion call” that lawmakers must act on climate change.Read More
By 2050, the tech giant pledges it will "remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975."Read More
The Australian bushfires are emitting huge amounts of climate warming carbon into the atmosphere. Normally, new vegetation that grows back would recapture it, but that may be changing. Read More
Regulations that began Jan. 1 restrict bottom trawl fishing on about 90% of the seafloor off Washington, Oregon and California.Read More
Remember back when it didn't cost anything to visit a state park for the day? A senior Republican in the Washington Legislature says the state's budget surplus should make it possible for park access to be free again.Read More
A new Trump administration plan to scale back a bedrock environmental law could affect all kinds of projects in the Northwest, including timber sales, hydroelectric dams, and large energy developments like the controversial Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas project with its 235-mile Pacific Connector pipeline.Read More
The dramatic explosion of Popocatépetl, about 40 miles south of Mexico City, sent columns of ash and debris shooting into the sky. Read More
More than 300 people showed up to hear speakers talk about why it’s important to either keep or alter the dams. The panel stems from a Washington state study that will guide the state’s position on dam removal.Read More
Washington Department of Ecology leaders say without access to this data, they can’t effectively protect the land, air and water for residents in eastern Washington and surrounding communities. They say they’ve attempted to negotiate this issue with federal Energy managers for years.Read More
Upcoming public workshops will examine a draft report that gauges how people in Washington want to deal with the fate of the dams. At the workshops, officials will present the report’s findings, followed by a panel discussion. People can submit written and online comments on the draft report through Jan. 24.Read More
An Oregon conservation group is exploring a cave to discover new spider species.Read More
The Trump administration has built up the biggest backlog of unfunded toxic Superfund clean-up projects in at least 15 years, nearly triple the number that were stalled for lack of money in the Obama era, according to 2019 figures quietly released by the Environmental Protection Agency over the winter holidays.Read More
Groundwater in southeastern Oregon is drying up. Farming, which uses a lot of that water, could decimate the region unless communities make drastic changes soon.Read More
California and other states are challenging the Trump administration over its reversal of standards for energy-efficient lightbulbs. Read More
As the climate warms, recent winters in Anchorage, Alaska, have seen more ice. The trend is leading to safety concerns and new measures to cope in this city where winter is defined by snow.Read More
After years of fear and uncertainty, bottom trawler fishermen — those who use nets to scoop up rockfish, bocaccio, sole, Pacific Ocean perch and other deep-dwelling fish — are making a comeback here, reinventing themselves as a sustainable industry less than two decades after authorities closed huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean because of the species’ depletion.Read More
Researchers at Oregon State University and the University of California-Berkeley looked at which forests in the Western United States should be prioritized for preservation under climate change scenarios.Read More
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Environmental Protection Agency must do more to protect Columbia basin salmon and steelhead from dangerously warm river temperatures.Read More
The U.S. House voted on Monday to pay compensation to the tribe for its losses when Grand Coulee Dam was built in the 1930s and 1940s.Read More
The Columbia River Treaty is costing U.S. ratepayers and public utility districts too much. That was the broad sentiment at a sometimes-tense town hall Monday about ongoing treaty negotiations. At the Richland meeting Monday night, negotiating officials laid out the complicated back-and-forth between the U.S. and Canada.Read More
The talks showed deep divisions, as small countries highly vulnerable to rising seas and powerful storms were at odds with wealthy, high-emitting countries like the United States. Read More
It’s been a little over a year since the Camp Fire destroyed the town of Paradise, which impacted thousands of lives in Northern California. The disaster also alarmed people across the West, who are now asking themselves: Could a fire like that happen here?Read More
A fully electric seaplane has made its first flight over the mouth of the Fraser River near Vancouver. The maiden flight represents a milestone in the long process of reducing the aviation industry's emissions, noise and costs by electrifying short-to-medium distance commercial flying.Read More
In a three-week trial, New York state prosecutors argued that the oil company had downplayed the financial risks it faces from possible climate regulation. Attorney General Letitia James said doing so made Exxon's assets appear more secure than they really were, which in turn affected its share price and defrauded investors.Read More
In an unprecedented response to historically low numbers of Pacific cod, the federal cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska is closing for the 2020 season. The decision, announced Friday, Dec. 6, came as little surprise, but it's the first time the fishery has closed due to concerns over low stock.Read More
A mysterious die-off of freshwater mussels has scientists scrambling to find a cause. Freshwater mussels clean water and provide habitat to countless other species.Read More
The utility hopes the settlement will help it emerge from bankruptcy proceedings by the end of the year. When it declared bankruptcy in January, the company faced potential liabilities of $30 billion.Read More
For the increased flows to occur, water will be released more than 850 river-miles northeast of Bonneville Dam. The water is then captured and released as needed to keep the salmon redds, or nests, underwater.Read More
