New study examines threats to state’s coal-dependent economy.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Posted inArticles
Supreme Court wrestles with air-pollution rule
Should the EPA have considered how expensive the new regs would be for operators?
Posted inArticles
States give Senate an earful on EPA greenhouse gas plan
Wyoming critiques federal coal plant cleanup at Senate hearing.
Posted inMarch 2, 2015: Unite and Conquer
Latest: California fracking companies inject protected aquifers with wastewater
EPA found that state regulators allowed 2,500 to be contaminated.
Posted inArticles
Utah burn ban ignites outrage over ‘basic freedoms’
The right to burn versus the right to breathe.
Posted inDecember 22, 2014: The Dust Detectives
The Latest: EPA released final cleanup order for Duwamish River
A million cubic yards of toxic sludge will be dredged from Seattle’s only river.
Posted inArticles
Remembering an environmental science pioneer
Theo Colborn uncovered effects of chemicals, like those used in fracking, on the human body.
Posted inArticles
Cleaner air for the Cowboy State
Even remote spots like the Wind Rivers could benefit from the EPA’s proposed crack down on polluters.
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
The Uintah Basin’s tricky oil and gas ozone problem
Can officials greenlight booming development and clean up the air at the same time?
Posted inArticles
More pesticides are permeating urban streams
But rural rivers are getting cleaner, a new study says.
Posted inAugust 18, 2014: Alaska's Uncertain Food Future
The Latest: EPA cuts pollution at the Navajo Generating Station
BackstoryBad air from coal-fired power plants not only causes health problems for the locals; it also ruins the scenery. In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency began addressing the visual impacts of air pollution from power plants, developing plans to reduce haze around national parks and wilderness areas. (“Clean air regulations protect views by targeting coal […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2014: Idaho's Sewer System
Idaho’s sewer system is the Snake River
As Big Ag flourishes, this massive waterway suffers.
Posted inGoat
Is Canada’s massive mine waste spill a sign of things to come?
From behind a screen of trees, it comes as a dull roar: A gray churn of water and debris that overtops roads, snaps trunks, carves chunks of earth from banks as if they were butter. It looks like a flash flood, something you’d see coursing from the mouth of a redrock wash in Utah, a […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
A historic moment for the Clean Air Act
How it arrived and how much it matters for the climate.
Posted inJuly 21, 2014: On the Wild Edge
Is coal dead?
Which plants are slated for closure or switches to natural gas.
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
River of no return
Seattle’s Duwamish has been straightened, dredged and heavily polluted. Can a Superfund cleanup bring it back to life?
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Duwamish sludge, from source to sink
A little over three miles from the mouth of the Lower Duwamish Waterway (once known as the Duwamish River), there is a small piece of property wreathed with chain-link fence and signs that warn in various languages of various threats to life and limb. This is Terminal 117, or T-117, former home of roofing material […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Which tributaries should be protected like the rivers they feed?
New rules may help regulators enforce an ambiguous law.
Posted inGoat
The West’s crucial 2014 U.S. Senate races
The big question of the 2014 midterm elections — other than, “Eric Cantor lost?!” — is which party will emerge with control of the U.S. Senate. A number of Western states will host Senate races this year – Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Alaska – but only three will be hotly contested, […]