Dispatch from the nation’s northernmost town, a community divided.
Coast
Posted inJune 22, 2015: Dust to Dust
Oceanic photos and call to action
Review of ‘The Salish Sea: Jewel of the Pacific Northwest’
Posted inArticles
Wrangell recovers from its timber hangover
Can a small Alaska town overcome the booms and busts of resource development?
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
The Los Angeles wetland wars
Environmentalists saved a wetland from developers a decade ago. Now they’re trying to save it from each other.
Posted inArticles
A coal terminal would bring profit to one tribe, damage to another
Photos of the communities for and against the proposed Washington port.
Posted inApril 27, 2015: Lost frontier
A plague on the Klamath River
The race to prevent a repeat of the West’s worst salmon-kill.
Posted inArticles
Washington’s Swinomish sue to halt Bakken oil trains
Many communities fight transport of crude oil through their towns; some find legal footing to succeed.
Posted inArticles
Land-based foods won’t float polar bears through ice declines
As climate change sends bears searching for calories, new research suggests there’s no substitute for seals.
Posted inArticles
Canada’s mining boom spills into U.S. waters
How do you protect a river that begins in another country?
Posted inJanuary 12, 2015: What Are We Thinking?
Should we put a price on nature?
A nuanced look at ecosystem services.
Posted inArticles
Drilling the Arctic comes with a 75 percent chance of a large oil spill
Key findings from a new environmental analysis.
Posted inArticles
Duwamish River to get $342 million more for cleanup
The EPA’s order aims to undo decades of industrial pollution to Seattle’s only river.
Posted inArticles
Virus implicated in starfish wasting disease
A team of scientists have figured out what’s killing West Coast sea stars, but bigger mysteries remain.
Posted inOctober 27, 2014: Defuse the West
The Latest: Sustainable seafood advocates vs. wilderness purists
After years of court battles, an oyster company in a national park agrees to shut down.
Posted inArticles
Offshore oil rigs can provide prime fish habitat
But will California’s platforms stay in the ocean once the oil runs out?
Posted inArticles
The walrus detectives
What’s behind the Alaska walrus haul-outs? Everyone’s calling climate change, but the truth is, we don’t know.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2014: Lost in the Woods
Watching the world slip away
How our children respond to a world threatened by climate change.
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
Alaska’s Uncertain Food Future
Climate change in the Far North puts traditional food sources at risk.
Posted inGoat
Washington’s new clean-water plan is a mixed bag
Washington’s governor last week announced a bold approach for creating cleaner, safer waters for fish and the people who eat them. Unless he didn’t. Every day, the state’s Department of Health releases a map of waterways so polluted that restrictions are placed on the amount and types of fish people should eat. Washington has many […]
Posted inGoat
Reasons for massive starfish dieoff still unknown
Here’s some shocking news: Since last fall, when I first wrote about Pacific sea stars falling victim to a mysterious disease, turning into goo and dying, the aptly-named “starfish wasting syndrome” has not – as scientists hoped – subsided on its own. It’s gotten much, much worse. How much worse, you ask? Well, from the […]