PFAS are a family of chemicals accumulating in the soil, rivers, drinking water and the human body. How much exposure to these substances in clothes, firefighting foam and food wrap is too much?Read More
Washington lawmakers are developing a low carbon fuels standard. If signed into law, new rules would limit the amount of carbon coming out of car and truck tailpipes. Backers say it’s necessary to combat climate change. Critics say it will increase the price at the pump.Read More
After hours of contentious floor debate, the Washington House of Representatives passed a low-carbon fuel standard this week. The result, if the state Senate also passes it: Cleaner fuels could start flowing from gas pumps in Washington state over the coming decade.Read More
President Donald Trump’s acting interior secretary announced plans Wednesday to lift protections for gray wolves in the Lower 48. The move will likely spur controversy in the Northwest.Read More
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced on Friday what political observers in his state have been expecting for months: He’s running for president, and focusing his campaign on climate change. But how strong is his record tackling, in his words, “the most urgent challenge of our time”?Read More
Washington could soon join the ranks of its West Coast neighbors, requiring fuels at the pump that produce less carbon pollution. A low-carbon fuels bill passed its first big test Monday, moving out of the House Appropriations Committee.Read More
Lawmakers in both Washington and Oregon are considering bills that would ban single-use plastic bags statewide to reduce plastic pollution.Read More
The chemicals, which are linked to health problems, have contaminated drinking water and soil in many parts of the United States. Critics say the EPA is not acting fast enough to limit them. Read More
Climate change is playing out in significant ways in Oregon, with evidence in the form of more severe wildfires, lower summer stream flows and diminishing winter snowpacks, according to the state’s fourth annual climate assessment report.Read More
Oregon’s bottle deposit system is recycling more containers than ever before despite major disruptions in global recycling markets.Read More
A bipartisan effort to make Washington the first state to legalize human composting faced its first test in front of lawmakers on Tuesday — and the idea seemed to go over relatively well. Read More
The Environmental Health Disparities Map ranks neighborhoods from 1 to 10. Ten is coded in red, meaning a higher environmental risk while 1, being the lowest, is coded in blue. On that map, Yakima County is a big, red blemish. Read More
Concern over climate change rose in late November with the release of a United Nations report on limiting global warming. “An ear-splitting wake-up call to the world,” the UN said of […]Read More
A decommissioned chemical weapons depot and a lone biologist might be the last hope for a population of burrowing owls.Read More
The Arctic has experienced the "most unprecedented transition in history" in terms of warming temperatures and melting ice, and those changes may be the cause of extreme weather around the globe, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2018 Arctic Report Card.Read More
The Trump administration wants to reduce restrictions for greater sage grouse across seven states. For the imperiled birds in Oregon, that means fewer grazing restrictions in some specific habitat. The decision has rankled conservation and hunting groups and been supported by ranchers.Read More
Apparently, salmon don’t like the smell of watercress. The aroma of shrimp doesn’t pique their interest either. And the fragrance, eu de steelhead? A definite no-go.Read More
Washington’s North Cascades will soon see the return of a small, weasel-like predator called the fisher. The carnivores have been missing from the area since the 1930s. Biologists hope the reintroduction next week will follow in the footsteps of other successful efforts in Washington.Read More
The Northwest is already seeing the effects of climate change, according to a new national climate assessment. Read More
Climate change is already causing more frequent and severe weather across the U.S., and the country is poised to suffer massive damage to infrastructure, ecosystems, health and the economy if global warming is allowed to continue, according to the most comprehensive federal climate report to date.Read More
Breweries are quite creative these days when it comes to saving energy. Double Mountain Brewery in Oregon uses refillable beer bottles, Five & 20 Spirits and Brewing turns its waste grain and water into compost for aquaculture, and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company recovers carbon dioxide from the fermentation cycle.Read More
Not all wildfire is a force of destruction. Many of our favorite Northwest plants and animals have evolved to depend on it.Read More
Increasingly hot and dry summers in Oregon and Washington have started to affect some of our most impressive travelers – the songbirds that migrate thousands of miles to breed here each spring.Read More
After nearly 20 years, a troubled landfill-turned Superfund site outside Pasco may soon have a final cleanup plan. Washington State Department of Ecology managers presented options Wednesday at a public meeting in the Tri-Cities.Read More
Scientists say warming ocean temperatures mean Oregon’s coastal waters now have a low-oxygen season, or hypoxia season, just as the state’s forests have a fire season.Read More
When toxins from algae made Salem’s drinking water potentially hazardous earlier this year, the city was unprepared to deal with both the public relations fallout from the breach and the more concrete matter of helping citizens access clean water.Read More
A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling in a case that revolves around metals pollution from a Trail, British Columbia smelter dumping in the Columbia River and flowing south to Washington state.Read More
Since the late 1980s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been keeping track of big polluters through their Toxic Waste Inventory or TRI. The EPA has released their latest data for 2017. We crunched some numbers for Washington, and here are the results. Read More
A rocky outcropping on Oregon's coast is home to dozens of rare tufted puffins and, this summer, volunteer Art Broszeit — a de facto expert on the exotic cold climate birds.Read More
Two hazardous waste companies operating along the Columbia River are arguing over mercury pollution getting into the air. One company, TD*X, is accusing the other, Chemical Waste Management, of releasing mercury into the air. The report goes on to say regulators aren’t requiring strong pollution controls.Read More
With the guidance of Seaside-based conservation group Sea Turtles Forever, about 50 volunteers gathered to clean the sand near Haystack Rock using unique screen filtration systems.Read More
The cod population in the Gulf of Alaska is at its lowest level on record. Scientists say the culprit is a warm-water mass known as "the blob."Read More
For people living in the “wildland-urban interface,” wildfire risk is the new normal, and the risk is increasing as more people move into places where cul-de-sac meets forest or sagebrush. Read More
A Portland-based organization has developed a digital tool called Wildbook that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to expedite wildlife identification.Read More
The West is in the midst of another intense fire season. Fires in California and Oregon have claimed lives and homes and burned up farmland. As part of EarthFix’s ongoing series on wildfire, reporter Tony Schick spoke with interim Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen about what her agency is doing to reform fire management and reverse the fire problem.Read More
A warming climate is knocking nature's rhythms out of sync. High in the Rocky Mountains, scientists have been tracking the impact for decades.Read More
The Trump administration is proposing key changes to the Endangered Species Act. It’s a move conservation groups say could greatly weaken the way animals and plants are protected.Read More
Federal lawmakers are making a move to change the Endangered Species Act. On Thursday, members of the U.S. House announced legislation they say will “modernize” one of the country’s seminal environmental laws, originally passed in 1973.Read More
Our region’s booming growth is also part of the problem. More overuse of fertilizers, pet waste, leaky septic tanks, people feeding ducks and geese — all give cyanobacteria the nutrients it needs to grow.Read More
Nearly 100 public water systems around Oregon—including the state’s largest—will be required to begin testing for harmful contaminants from algae blooms under new rules unveiled by the Oregon Health Authority.Read More
Scientists say a starfish populations are recovering from a devastating die-off with help from a massive baby boom.Read More
Hundreds of citizen scientists have begun buzzing through locations across the Pacific Northwest seeking a better understanding about nearly 30 bumblebee species.Read More
Over the past year, more than 10,000 tons of Oregon’s recycling has been dumped in landfills because there was nowhere else for it to go.
It’s one of the consequences of new restrictions on shipping recyclables to China.Read More
Washington state’s electric vehicle law is being widely ignored, according to a new report. June 1 was the deadline set by a decade-old law that requires vehicles in government fleets to run on electricity or biofuel. But just two percent of the state's motor pool is electric now, and many cities and counties have no electric vehicles at all.Read More
A small hot spot flared up early Tuesday morning about a half-mile east of the Herman Creek Trailhead. It’s less than a quarter of an acre with little chance that it will spread. Firefighters are using nearby creek water to extinguish it.Read More
Aptly nicknamed Washaway Beach in Pacific County, Washington, has long suffered from the most extreme coastal erosion along the whole U.S. West Coast. Now a relatively low cost defense is raising hopes among property owners and nearby cranberry growers.Read More
A group of senators from western states want to expand a national effort to boost timber production and restore natural conditions on overstocked forests using thinning and other restoration work.Read More
Researchers at Oregon State University have worked out a way to detect and identify whales long after they move on — just by sampling the water.Read More
In congressional testimony Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said he has heard the strong opposition from the West Coast to the Trump administration's plan for offshore oil and gas drilling. He expressed doubt drilling would ever happen along the Pacific Northwest coast.Read More
Emergency managers from Washington coastal counties and tribes practiced tsunami alert communication and coordination with state and federal partners Thursday. They're trying to smooth out glitches revealed after an undersea earthquake in Alaska in January.Read More
