"Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is introducing a plan today that would allow bison in Yellowstone National Park to travel north outside the park boundaries into Montana's Gardiner Basin during winter months."

"An estimated 352,000 pounds of lead washed into Lake Coeur d'Alene on Jan. 18 after flooding related to a rain-on-snow event."

"An Idaho House committee supported Wednesday a move to seal off more data related to confined-animal feeding operations from the public eye, making it harder for the public to tell if state regulations are enforced."

"Wyoming, famous for its crisp mountain air and breathtaking, far-as-the-eye-can-see vistas, is looking a little bit like smoggy Los Angeles these days because of a boom in natural gas drilling."

"A Canadian company hoping to compete with China's near-monopoly of rare earth elements — metals critical for everything from U.S. military weaponry to wind turbines — wants to open a strip mine inside a national forest in northeast Wyoming."

"Neighbors of a toxic mine in northern Nevada have filed a class-action lawsuit against BP America and Atlantic Richfield Co. accusing them of intentionally and negligently concealing the extent of the contamination leaking off the abandoned site for decades."

Colorado does not have enough money to fix more than 50 unsafe and potentially deadly dams. But keeping reservoir levels low to prevent disastrous failure deprives the state of water it badly needs right now.

"Yellowstone National Park's iconic bison herds are suffering their worst winter in several years with almost 400 of the animals being held for possible slaughter — and a much-heralded initiative to expand where they can roam on the verge of failure."

"A small environmental miracle has occurred in Beatty, Nev., a former mining town that sits on the eastern edge of Death Valley between Jackass Flats and Sober Up Gulch. The people of Beatty have helped revive the Amargosa toad, a warty, speckled, palm-sized creature that's unique to the area and, just a few years ago, seemed headed for extinction."

"The 2.5 million cubic yards of fine-grained sediment dredged from the former reservoir east of Missoula has been spread 2 feet thick over more than 600 acres of wasteland between Anaconda and its satellite community of Opportunity. But it won’t grow grass."

"The need for rare-earth minerals like neodymium could define the relationship between the United States and China and elevate Idaho into a critical role in the nation’s industrial future."

"A roundup of wild horses began Monday in northwestern Colorado over the objections of animal advocacy groups."

"Across the northern Rocky Mountains, bighorn sheep are dying by the hundreds from pneumonia and alarmed wildlife officials are hunting and killing the majestic animals to halt the spread of the disease."

"A proposal to designate more than 300,000 acres of wilderness in central Idaho appears to be in a political tailspin, dashing hopes among wilderness advocates that the Gem State could soon resolve a decades-long debate over management of its public lands."

The wildfire near Boulder, Colo., is still burning, with some 135 homes destroyed, making it the worst in Colorado history. Four people are missing. Meanwhile, as the reverse-911 phone system meant to notify people of evacuation failed to work properly, social media like Twitter emerged as the connection-of-choice in the tech-savvy community.