Water supplies and drought outlooks are grim in most Western states.
Oregon
Posted inMarch 16, 2015: Wild Ride
Governor Kitzhaber’s fall from grace
The peculiar and spectacular undoing of Oregon’s top official.
Posted inMarch 16, 2015: Wild Ride
Latest: Oregon chub is no longer endangered
The species became the first fish to recover enough to be delisted.
Posted inMarch 2, 2015: Unite and Conquer
Latest: New pesticide regulations for Oregon timber companies
Companies must now give officials at least a week’s notice before spraying.
Posted inArticles
Dry January means more drought across West
After a rainy December, many states now have lower-than-normal snowpacks.
Posted inArticles
A new film tells the story of the Klamath River agreements
Republican lawmaker-turned-filmmaker, Jason Atkinson on why conservation doesn’t have to be a partisan issue.
Posted inArticles
Rural counties dealing with loss of fed dollars
Faced with federal subsidy cuts, counties are chopping services and clamoring for logging money
Posted inDecember 22, 2014: The Dust Detectives
Aquifer recharging can help stanch drought
Oregon is successfully capturing runoff to underground storage.
Posted inArticles
How Native Americans have shaped the year’s biggest environmental debates
And how lawmakers can improve their record next year.
Posted inNovember 24, 2014: Transportation Transformation
Trains carrying oil raise tough questions in Northwest
As crude oil rail shipments increase, residents fear derailments and explosions.
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 inNovember 10, 2014: Fallout
Photographs of the Gold Beach community
The people affected by this timberland herbicide cocktail.
Posted inNovember 10, 2014: Fallout
Timberland herbicide spraying sickens a community
Companies deposit thousands of pounds of herbicides each year on Oregon forests.
Posted inOctober 13, 2014: Charles Bowden's Fury
Utilities experiment on the rural Northwest
Real-time response to demand could radically shift how the grid operates.
Posted inArticles
Don’t drink the water
Portland’s fluoridation battle shows how tricky it is to integrate science into debates that have as much to do with values as policy.
Posted inArticles
Hurdles mount for Northwest coal exports
How high are the stakes for Western coal producers?
Posted inGoat
Closure of federal sheep facility would be a victory for grizzlies
On the last day of August, 2012, a collared grizzly bear dubbed 726 by federal wildlife biologists vanished into the rugged Centennial Mountains on the Idaho-Montana border. A few weeks later, they recovered his collar near an established campsite. It appeared to have been cut, stoking suspicions that hunters may have shot the bear, a […]
Posted inGoat
Critics see GOP wildfire bill as attack on environmental protections
Forests and grasslands are smoldering across vast areas of Oregon and Washington, scorching homes and habitat in what may turn out to be a particularly gnarly fire season. Although nationally the season has been quieter than usual, intense fires have been burning in the Pacific Northwest and parts of California, and the West Coast is […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
A once nomadic firefighter decides to stay put
There’s a wildfire burning three miles from my house. Sparked by lightning, the column of smoke went nuclear yesterday, pushing flame through deadfall on the rugged shoulder of Chief Joseph Mountain in northwestern Oregon. This is a mountain we climb and ski and hike, the place where, with a glance, we can see the elevation […]