"Scientists up and down the West Coast are monitoring what appears to be a large-scale die-off of young Cassin’s auklets, small seabirds whose breeding grounds include a colony in the Farallon Islands west of San Francisco."

"Wineries and vineyards dot the landscape of Livermore with brand new homes and schools popping up right next to them. ... The beauty, however, soon became overshadowed by her family’s illnesses, and nobody knew why it was happening."

"Levels of a type of pesticide commonly used in backyard gardens and on farms have increased in urban and rural watersheds in California, the state said in a report released Wednesday."

"MECCA, Calif. — The area around this town of date palms attracts two kinds of migrants — hundreds of humans who work the land, and millions of birds that stop to rest and gorge at the nearby Salton Sea. The sea is a 110-year-old, increasingly briny, shallow lake that covers 350 square miles but is dwindling fast."

"Paul Helliker had a job for Dow AgroSciences."

"Every fall and winter at sunset, the sky above Staten Island fills with majestic sandhill cranes alighting in the fields. The sight is more spectacular than usual this year, as the number of cranes wintering on the island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has doubled over the same time in 2013."

"Richmond [CA] voters handed Chevron a resounding rejection in Tuesday’s election, defeating all four candidates supported by the oil giant despite Chevron outspending its opponents by a 20-to-1 margin."

"California voters enduring a record drought approved a $7.5 billion bond measure to upgrade water systems after Governor Jerry Brown said it was needed to shore up supplies."

"Local activists try to halt the shipment of explosive Bakken crude oil through their neighborhoods."

"More than 5 million Californians — most of them in Los Angeles and Kern counties — live near an oil or gas well, and expanding drilling in the state could increase their exposure to health risks, according to a report released Wednesday by a national environmental group."