Environment
Environment
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Microsoft Pledges To Remove From The Atmosphere All The Carbon It’s Ever Emitted
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.”

Australia’s Wildfires Are Releasing Vast Amounts Of Carbon
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.
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2020 Brings New Protections For West Coast Seafloor Habitat
Regulations that began Jan. 1 restrict bottom trawl fishing on about 90% of the seafloor off Washington, Oregon and California.
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Washington Lawmakers Hope To Discover A Way To Pass Free State Parks Entry Bill This Year
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.

How The Trump Administration’s Environmental Policy Rollback Affects The Northwest
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.
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Video: Mexico’s Most Active Volcano Erupts, Spews Ash Cloud Nearly 20,000 Feet
The dramatic explosion of Popocatépetl, about 40 miles south of Mexico City, sent columns of ash and debris shooting into the sky.

Dams Vs. Salmon: Workshops Aim To Get Past ‘My Study Can Beat Up Your Study’ On Snake River
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.

Washington State Regulators Fine Feds More Than $1 Million Over Hanford Cleanup Data
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.
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Public Invited To Clarkston-Pasco-Vancouver Workshops On Question Of Snake River Dams
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.
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A Father-Daughter Journey To Northwest Caves In Search Of Creepy Crawlers
An Oregon conservation group is exploring a cave to discover new spider species.

Backlog Of Toxic Superfund Cleanup Sites Grows Under Trump Administration
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.
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Water Crisis In Eastern Oregon Puts Rural Community At A Crossroads
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.