"Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's decision last week to close down Drakes Bay Oyster Co. was years in the making, costing his agency millions of dollars in research and potentially damaging the reputation of the National Park Service."

"During the fall campaign, California's attention was focused on the presidential race and Gov. Jerry Brown's tax measure. But in a historic, largely overlooked environmental shift, the state's voters also triggered a multibillion-dollar tidal wave of new green spending."

"Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, announced on Thursday that he would not extend the lease of an oyster farm in the Point Reyes National Seashore in Northern California, allowing the estuary there to become a wilderness area."

"HAPPY CAMP, Calif. -- Weather officials are issuing flood warnings for much of Northern California as the second in a series of wet storms hits the state."

"After more than a decade of deliberations, the San Diego County Water Authority voted Thursday to buy desalinated water from a $984 million project planned in Carlsbad. Officials hailed it as a historic step on the path to water self-sufficiency for the region."

"A series of drenching, powerful storms is lining up from the Pacific Ocean and will roll onshore in the West Coast through the weekend."

"New citations against Chemical Waste Management prompt Kettleman City activists, who believe the dump has sickened children, to protest its proposal to grow."

"The Obama administration [Wednesday] released a final rule setting aside 9.6 million acres of critical habitat for the federally threatened northern spotted owl, a species whose population continues to slide despite decades of conservation efforts."

"HINKLEY -- Underwater home mortgages plague the High Desert at an approximate rate of 60 percent, according to real estate website Zillow.com. But in Hinkley, residents say the entire town is dealing with mortgages above their current assessed values."

"California's largest greenhouse gas emitting businesses paid $10.09 per metric tonne (1.1 ton) for the right to release carbon, raising almost $300 million for the cash-strapped state and its energy companies in its first-ever carbon permit auction."

"Superstorm Sandy made one thing clear to millions in the New York metro area: Despite modern transportation and communication systems, and extensive water and electricity services, nature is still in control. The same is true in Sacramento."

"Cancer-causing chemicals linger around homes and in gardens over a 9-square-mile area more than three months after a catastrophic fire at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, according to an environmental justice group."

"The California Coastal Commission cites potentially deadly harm to threatened and endangered marine animals in denying PG&E a permit to conduct the tests near the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant."

"SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Despite fierce opposition from much of the business community, California's grand experiment in taming global warming begins in earnest Wednesday."

"State officials are set to auction tens of millions of dollars' worth of carbon-emission allowances to scores of oil refiners, cement manufacturers and other large industrial polluters.

"Gill nets and a tippy rowboat are being used this month to pluck thousands of alien critters out of San Francisco's Mountain Lake as part of an innovative effort to resurrect the area's ecological history."