"What could become the nation’s largest lithium mine broke ground in Nevada this [last] week, positioning the political swing state as a likely leader in pumping out battery minerals critical for making electric vehicles and meeting President Joe Biden’s climate goals."
"Canada's environment minister on Friday said he was "deeply concerned" about a leak of toxic tailings water from Imperial Oil's Kearl oil sands mine in northern Alberta that has been going on for months."
"Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is putting the future of one of President Biden’s nominees to the Interior Department in question."
"Brandon Bowlin learned of the U.S. government’s plan for clear-cutting in the southernmost mountains of Daniel Boone National Forest only a few weeks after the hard summer rains of 2022, when the earth slid off a mountain beneath a slope he had once logged."
"The Biden administration on Friday said it would require states to report on cybersecurity threats in their audits of public water systems, a day after it released a broader plan to protect critical infrastructure against cyberattacks."
"Record rain and snowfall in recent weeks has eased half of California out of a persistent drought and bolstered the store of mountain snow that the state relies on to provide water during the warm, dry spring and summer."
"Contaminated soil from the site around the East Palestine train wreck in Ohio is being sent to a nearby incinerator with a history of clean air violations, raising fears that the chemicals being removed from the ground will be redistributed across the region."
"For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas, representing a turning point in a yearslong effort to bestow order on vast stretches of the planet where conservation has previously been hampered by a confusing patchwork of laws."
Industrial hog farmers tout swine biogas as a clean, green energy source, but others point to its messy side. A young journalist who investigated the underreported stench of environmental racism associated with this technology learned valuable lessons along the way to producing a feature story that won her a Society of Environmental Journalists’ award for outstanding student reporting.
Abandoned oil and gas wells are found in significant numbers in some 27 states. Reporters who want to track their status can dig into several databases, but will need to support their data crunching with lots of shoe-leather and ground-truth reporting. Reporter’s Toolbox has insights into what the databases offer. Plus, a primer on API numbers.
