"The Obama administration’s new plan to show that salmon and hydroelectric dams can coexist along the Columbia and Snake Rivers is not all that different from the Bush administration’s old plan, according to critics who want a federal judge to rule against it."

"In what is being touted as the world's biggest dam-removal project, an agreement was reached Tuesday to remove four dams on the Klamath River and restore a 300-mile migratory route for California's beleaguered salmon."

"Dirty water from residential washing machines is a significant source of a toxin polluting Puget Sound, according to a study released Tuesday."

Scientists use treetop gondolas in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southeast Washington to study the effects of global warming on trees.

"Seattle -- Fisheries managers announced Tuesday that they would enhance but not significantly alter the government's current strategy for saving salmon from extinction in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest, drawing criticism from conservationists."

"Workers at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site have finished excavating a leaky pool built in the 1950s to hold spent fuel from nuclear reactors."

"Oregon regulators say they will not support an exemption from federal pollution rules for a cement plant in Eastern Oregon that is one of the largest sources of mercury emissions in the nation."

Tidelands in Skagit County are being flooded to help restore the estuary.

"Seattle voters have turned down Referendum 1, which aimed to reduce throwaway bag use in Seattle by charging shoppers 20 cents for each disposable plastic or paper shopping bag provided by stores."

"Oregon's top environmental agency plans to side with one of the state's biggest polluters in its effort to seek an exemption from tough new federal rules controlling the release of toxic mercury."

Should Mt. St. Helens, which erupted almosty 30 years ago, be a National Park? There is a debate over whether the land should be used for recreation or to study how landscapes recover from violent disturbance.

"SEATTLE - Leaders of this famously green city last year passed the nation's first grocery-bag fee, and other cities around the nation quickly followed. But the plastics industry has been fighting back, bringing lawsuits, aggressively lobbying lawmakers, and bankrolling a referendum in Seattle that aims to overturn the 20-cent charge. The measure goes before voters Tuesday."

"The push for green power could spawn a rush for small hydropower projects in the Northwest."

Fuel barges on the Columbia River are having more accidents, although none so far has resulted in a known spill. The Coast Guard refuses to disclose information about the incidents, citing investigations which it has not completed in periods of up to 16 months.

"A coalition of three nonprofit water protection groups are jointly requesting that the Washington Department of Ecology 'abandon its plans to weaken industrial stormwater protections.'"