"HAYWARD -- Every summer day, volunteers and park workers stand guard on a small island in San Francisco Bay. At the first sign of a threat, they race into action -- blowing whistles, clapping hands and blasting horns."

"At the doorstep to the largest hazardous waste landfill in the West, Kettleman City has some of California's biggest pollution burdens, the state Environmental Protection Agency says."

"SAN BRUNO -- Taking a tougher stand against PG&E, a revamped state regulatory body on Tuesday recommended that the utility be fined at least $300 million -- the largest ever imposed by the Public Utilities Commission -- as part of a $2.25 billion penalty for the company's role in the deadly San Bruno natural gas explosion."

"California corrections officials announced Tuesday they will comply with a federal judge's order to move inmates at risk of contracting valley fever out of two San Joaquin Valley prisons."

"In Vernon, a judge allows Exide to resume operations that had been suspended for alleged pollution violations. In the Central Valley, a state agency OKs expansion of a hazardous waste dump."

"SHAFTER -- One afternoon last fall, Tom Frantz cradled a video camera in his hand and pointed it at an oil well on the edge of this San Joaquin Valley farm town."

"SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. -- In parts of California's Sierra Nevada, marshy meadows are going dry, wildflowers are blooming earlier and glaciers are melting into ice fields."

"A potentially deadly heat wave is expected to bear down on some Arizona and California desert areas in the next few days, forecasters said on Wednesday."

"Dismantling of the silt-filled San Clemente, to start next month, is being called California's largest-ever dam removal."

"The facilities will restore pumping of drinking water from scores of contaminated San Fernando Valley wells, lessening L.A.'s reliance on imported water, agency says."

"Seattle has set itself an 86-page to-do list to help it reach carbon neutrality by 2050."

"GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- Tens of thousands of acres in Oregon's drought-stricken Klamath Basin will have to go without irrigation water this summer after the Klamath Tribes and the federal government exercised newly confirmed powers that put the tribes in the driver's seat over water use — a move ranchers fear will be economically disastrous."

"A California judge Tuesday upheld the sale of water from the farmers of the Imperial Valley to the thirsty cities in San Diego County -- the largest farms-to-cities water deal in the nation."

"The Powerhouse fire has a dance all its own, and firefighters have struggled to keep up with the flames."

"Climate change threatens most of California's native freshwater fish -- many of which don't exist anywhere else in the world -- with extinction, a new study says."