Mountain West (CO ID MT NV UT WY)

Some residents are worried about a rural Nevada dump where decades of toxic refuse lie buried in shallow trenches.

In the Yaak Valley of Montana, environmentalists have been talking to loggers, snowmobilers and other longtime opponents of wilderness protection about the future of public lands. Rick Bass writes of his involvement in a cooperative effort that could lead to the first wilderness-area designation in the state in a quarter-century.

"Glaciers on the iconic Teton Range are shrinking, researchers say, joining a growing list of glaciers in North America and beyond that are losing their surface area and potentially reducing the water supply for nearby regions."

"Eighteen cattle likely died of selenium poisoning near a southeastern Idaho phosphate mine, the latest livestock deaths in a region rich in phosphates where a legacy of pollution has killed horses and hundreds of sheep since the 1990s."

"After four years of negotiations, Utah and Nevada officials have created a draft agreement for management of the controversial Snake Valley aquifer straddling both states."

"As it races to replenish phosphate supplies for its weed-killing cash machine Roundup, Monsanto Co. insists its history of polluting southeastern Idaho’s high country shouldn’t prevent it from digging fresh open pits here."

"Part of the Nevada Test Site that hosted nuclear blasts in the past has been closed to avoid a costly cleanup of contaminated soils."

"The Obama administration is proposing to allow up to 318 snowmobiles per day into Yellowstone National Park for the next two winters, cutting by more than half the 720 allowed last winter by the Bush administration."

"Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, is not known for being a friend of fossil fuels. ...So it was a bit of a surprise this month when Ritter told oil and gas executives that natural gas should not be seen as simply a bridge fuel."

"Rainbow trout are rebounding in the Madison River, the world-class fishing stream where Montana's first known outbreak of whirling disease occurred about 15 years ago, devastating the rainbow fishery."