After a rainy December, many states now have lower-than-normal snowpacks.
Oregon
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 […]
Posted inWotr
Our reliance on drones to patrol the borders
When I think of Canada, I picture caribou herds, universal healthcare and the occasional hockey brawl. Officials at our Department of Homeland Security, however, seem to think the neighbors up North pose a serious security threat. After all, the department has spent the last five years quietly building a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles — […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
The Latest: After a long battle, agreement for the Klamath
BackstoryTo protect endangered fish during 2001’s drought, federal officials shut off irrigation water in Oregon and California’s Klamath Basin, costing agriculture millions. The next year, farmers got their water – along with a massive salmon die-off that infuriated Klamath tribes. Tribal members and farmers remained at odds until 2004, when federal rulings prompted dam-owner PacifiCorp […]
Posted inGoat
Railroads inch toward transparency on oil shipments
On April 18, a wildflower photographer looking for blooming balsamroot on the Oregon slopes of the Columbia River Gorge happened to glance down and see dozens of black tankers barreling along the railroad below. The identification numbers on the tankers’ warning signs revealed that they were carrying crude. Yet despite tragic derailments in the past […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
The first college degree in drones, a baby born in Walmart parking lot and more
IDAHOIn the TV studio, the faces of the journalists questioning the four Republican would-be candidates for Idaho governor sometimes registered dismay, other times wonder. They simply could not believe what they were hearing, when Walt Bayes declared his “main loyalty” was to God and against vile affections and wickedness, when motorcyclist Harley Brown boasted that […]