"After a 10-month wait, preliminary work began Thursday on the delicate task of removing barrels sitting in Wallowa Lake marked as containing defoliants used in Agent Orange."
A decades-old environmental jobs program that provided work for thousands of disadvantaged young people across more than a dozen states has been hit with one of the largest federal downsizings in a decade. Find out how the closing of some Civilian Conservation Centers may be a story near you, from the latest TipSheet.
"A federal judge has blocked the grazing permits issued to father and son ranchers who were the focus of a battle about public land."
"Oregon will ban restaurants from automatically offering single-use plastic straws under a measure passed by lawmakers, making it the second state to enact restrictions on plastic straws."
It’s a good case for the global-local nexus: The potent greenhouse gas methane may be leaking from your local landfill. And this week’s TipSheet explains the latest news developments in this long-standing controversy, as well as policy disputes over capturing the gas. Plus, get story ideas and questions to ask for your local reporting.
"A salmon-farming company with net pens in Rich Passage has agreed to pay $332,000 in fines after one of its floating pens collapsed in 2017, releasing a quarter-million nonnative Atlantic salmon into Puget Sound near Cypress Island, about 10 miles southwest of Bellingham."
"The Lummi Nation is dropping live salmon into the sea in a last-ditch rescue effort: ‘We don’t have much time’"
"The Washington State Legislature passed Senate Bill 5116 on Monday – a bill that will eliminate coal power by 2025 and transition the state to 100 percent clean and renewable electricity by 2045."
The latest release of the annual endangered rivers list provides boatloads of environmental reporting angles, including climate change-related threats like flooding and drought. This week’s TipSheet has the backstory and the new top-10 list, plus 10 suggested starting points for stories and a half-dozen key reporting resources.
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